


Universal Truths

by inkyfishes



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: 2010 Dirk Gently is an Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Comic Canon, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mystery, Post-Season/Series 01, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 03:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 70,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11912568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyfishes/pseuds/inkyfishes
Summary: For the DGHDA Big Bang 2017.“...Very long story short, until yesterday, it hailed as my greatest case: one of deception, danger, double-crosses, and an all-round perversion of high emotion and - dare I say it - romance…”What do horses, robots, time-travel, false identities, alternate universes, flagrant homosexuality and the University of Cambridge have in common? Probably not much, but it's all Todd Brotzman has to work with after he falls through a hole in space and time, arriving at St. Cedd’s College for the first day of Svlad Cjelli (not yet notoriously known as Dirk Gently). There's a case to be solved, but it refuses to start. For both Todd and Svlad, and Dirk and Farah, events unfold in exactly the way you'd expect at Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.(This work is canon-compliant as per the end of Season 1. It refers to canon set out in the two Dirk Gently novels, the Dirk Gently 2010 TV Series, the Dirk Gently Comics "The Salmon of Doubt" and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, but none of that is needed to understand the work.)





	1. Prologue - Electric Hell

**Author's Note:**

> The twin-biggest thanks to Thunder (@excellentcollectionofwords) who has done some, just, fundamentally gorgeous artwork which is embedded in places but can be found [here on Tumblr](http://excellentcollectionofwords.tumblr.com/post/164646509115/edits-for-the-dirk-gently-big-bang-for-the). The other twin-biggest thanks goes to @holisticmurdermuppet on tumblr, who I'm sure was like "...FUCK she's stupidly ambitions and she's gonna crash and burn here" AND I DID. She was a saint and a brilliant help and just... thanks so gosh darn much.
> 
> And, of course, all hail mod Lydia.
> 
> Dedicated to this beautiful, beautiful fandom <3

**Seattle, At The End**

The universe is bleeding. It’s bleeding big, fat clots of time. They’re oozing from the paper-fine gashes in its surface. The universe is _really_ not doing well.

It’s bleeding in Seattle, in the collapsed basement remnant of the once proud Spring mansion and in some annihilated ruins in Seattle Zoo, where a far too appropriately named “Animal Transfer Facility” once stood.

It’s bleeding in Cambridge, in the sky around a set of don’s rooms in the Second Court of St Cedd’s college, which are perched on top of a large, spiral staircase smugly older than America.

It’s bleeding in Brooklyn, just outside a small, family-owned pizza joint, which doesn’t profess to having ‘the best slice in the universes’ but could, if it wanted to, because it’s undoubtedly true.

The stuff the universe is bleeding smells good. It smells absolutely irresistible. At least, it smells that way to Them.

They spend time they cannot comprehend in a bullet-proof glass container, on a dusty shelf in a warehouse. They are stuffed in-between a large filing cabinet and boxes of old clothes. They don't die because they don't know what that is. It's been a long time since a thing came to prod them, shock them or shout at them. For years, all they have known is the smell – the thick, heady, sickly-sweet something. They want it. They don't know why they want it, because they aren't able to know what wanting is.

They have been called remnants, shadows, barely-there things – glitches in the actions of the universe – by the things who once came to prod or shock or shout.. They are soft things in form. Small, hand-sized things with thin, fluttering wings and black, mouse-like eyes which glitter like the heads of pins. Their shine is no less dulled by time spent in utter darkness, their wings emerald green, sapphire blue and sunflower yellow.

After some time – or perhaps no time at all - the glass container is opened. It's kicked open, in fact. By something large and beast-like, with shining silver shoes.

They are breathlessly _uncaged_.

They flit through the dark grey rooms of the holding facility, following their silver-shoed saviour, before they taste fresh air. They dart left, then right, then out of a half-open window.

They burst into the dawning sky in exaltation and swoop into high air, tumbling playfully back into the ground. They know not to go too high, nor to fly too low. They are afraid of the soporific water, and the melting sun.

They swerve through close, brick buildings on their journey. They flick through crowds of people, brushing air against their skin, and then dart away, too quickly to be seen. They barrel over one another, aimlessly bothering ultrasonic animals with their white-noise squeaking.

They reach the land where the Spring mansion once stood in no time at all - or, perhaps, after a long time. They are not very sure of time, outside of the indisputable fact that, when it is bled by the universe, it must be very, very tasty.

*

In a wealthy suburb of Seattle - the kind with trimmed lawns, sand-blasted driveways and two BMWs for every bleached-blonde, private-school-tutored teenager - Farah Black begins her day as she usually does: locking her front door, double locking her front door, and then setting all nine devices in her WayForward Advanced Home Co-operative Security Net to ‘ACTIVE’.

There are several familiar sounds - shutters slamming, cameras repositioning, alarms chirping - but then, unfamiliarly, the back of Farah’s neck tingles. She has the crawling feeling that someone, or something, is behind her.

She quickly assesses her environment. The weight of her Beretta 92 in the inside pocket of her brown leather jacket, which she loaded that morning. No real wind to speak of; no environmental conditions liable to distract a shot.

Unhelpful tension ripples along her shoulders, and she consciously encourages it to slide away. She dismisses the panicky urge to draw her weapon. The something behind her - if there _is_ indeed something behind her - is not necessarily a danger. It could just be a girl scout. Pulling a gun at a girl scout would not be good. Not again. It was difficult enough to explain the first time.

After three short breaths designed to centre herself, she turns sharply and finds... nothing. The street behind her is bare. Her neighbour’s cars are alone in their driveways. Their houses are silent. It’s early morning, quiet, in a nothing-ever-happens suburb of Seattle.

But something still feels wrong.

Farah puts another brick in the wall between her and her anxiety, shaking her head and muttering dismissively to herself.

The word ‘paranoia’ flitters across her subconscious, followed by the more agreeable, but certainly not more welcome, ‘hunch’.

*

Farah arrives at the door of the office forty minutes later, two Starbucks coffees and a tea in a cardboard carrier and her black laptop bag slung over her shoulder. The office is on top of a laundromat, in which tired-eyed students and ancient women are already slinging armfuls of dirty laundry into huge, metal dryers. The door to the office is just to the left of the large glass-front, inconspicuous apart from a large, shining brass plate firmly screwed into the brick just below the tired buzzer.

DIRK GENTLY’S

HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY

With one hand, Farah deactivates the WayForward Advanced Security Entrance Alarm, first by tapping in a series of numbers and then placing her right thumb against a smudged glass panel.

A previously red light flashes green. She pushes the door open with her shoulder.

She jogs up the cramped staircase, her boots heavy on the steps. When she reaches the top, she notices the front door, is wedged open with a brick.

Farah tightens her jaw, but counts down from ten instead of dropping the drinks and reaching for her gun.

She quickly assesses for the second time that morning. The door is otherwise unharmed, showing no evidence of unauthorised access. The lock still looks in good shape, and the frosted window is still intact. Farah can hear distracted humming from inside in a low register she recognises, and the smell of paint ebbing from inside the room.

Psychic she may not be, but Farah's instinct flourishes her with an answer for why the door has been jammed open.

On entering the office proper, Farah's suspicions are confirmed. Todd Brotzman is pushing a paint roller up and down the wall behind Dirk's desk, colourful scrawled writing being covered by a fresh coat of egg-shell white. The writing is Dirk's investigative necessity. He seems dead set against computerised mapping software, pin boards or even paper, always insisted on writing his seemingly random phrases - clues - straight onto the office wall in multicoloured permanent marker. Every case necessitates it, which means that each case closure comes along with a re-paint.

‘Todd? What have I told you about wedging the door open?’ Farah asks, stiffly putting the drinks on her desk.

Todd looks over his shoulder and rolls his eyes, as if it isn’t a big deal (which it is).

‘I was trying to not kill myself with paint fumes.’

‘It blatantly disregards my security recommendations. You could have opened a window.’

‘The security system won’t let me open a window.’

‘You could have deactivated the security system - I’ve given you the password.’

‘You wouldn’t let me write it down; It’s not exactly easy to remember.’

Farah huffs, exasperated. ‘What would be the point of a password that was easy to remember? If it was easy to remember, it would be easy to determine - that completely flies against the whole point of passwords.’

‘I swear, I’m going to take an axe to everything blinking and whirring in this office,’ Todd growls. He places the roller carefully into a thin, plastic paint tray at his feet and walks over to the coffee.

‘And I'll take every cent it costs to replace it out of your next paycheck.’

Farah crosses her arms and look over Todd's work. The wall definitely needed another coat to fully cover the mess that Dirk had made. There had been an significant amount of scribbling in the last case.

‘So... that’s definitely the end of it, then?’ Farah says.

‘Yeah, apparently. A bit, uh, anti-climatic.’ Todd sounds almost disappointed.

‘Not everything has to end in a shoot-out. Sometimes you can just, you know. Tell your client their girlfriend is an elephant now, and leave them to deal with it.’ Farah says, although she hasn't entirely come to terms with that herself.

‘Not exactly a happy ending, but. At least he’s a fan of peanuts? And he seemed cool with that zoo season ticket we got him.’ Todd picks up a rag from Dirk’s desk and starts to dab at some of the paint splattered over his left shoulder, leeching into his grey t-shirt. ‘Dirk says he’ll be in about eleven.’

‘So we should expect him about…?’

‘Three, if at all,’ Todd smirks. Farah glares at him, dissatisfied. ‘Come on, Farah. It’s going to be a paperwork day, isn’t it? Billing... settling accounts… assembling reports. Dirk never turns up on paperwork days. He’ll do it eventually, when you have a go at him.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Farah scoffs. ‘Have you _seen_ what he calls an invoice?’

Farah walks to her desk and pulls a random invoice from the neat “Reject” stack she had assembled a last night.

‘“Ms Nicole T. Carmichal. Cost: $6435.43. Bill reads: Cactus.” _Cactus?_ ’ Farah emphasises, exasperated. ‘Did we supply her a cactus? Did we remove a cactus? If the IRS ever audit us -’

‘The universe will take care of it?’ Todd attempts, hopefully. Farah gives him The Look. ‘You’d believe that if Dirk said it.’

‘No, I wouldn’t. I’d call him out on it - as should you. How does him excusing his laziness through blaming “the universe” not drive you insane? I mean - the state of his desk -’ Farah sweeps her hand in the direction of Dirk’s desk, which is one unwashed mug away from collapsing under the weight of unfiled paperwork, empty pizza boxes, uncapped biros, tissues, condiments and half-finished leftovers in tin foil swans. ‘It’s a health hazard.’

‘It’s just... the way he works,’ Todd says, although he sounds equally unconvinced. ‘Look, I could clean it, if it’s bothering you so much. And hey, it’s not… the worst it’s been…’ Farah crosses her arms and sets her jaw. ‘I mean, I don’t think there’s anything alive in it this time. And if anything was at one point, it’s definitely dead now.’

‘Todd. If you keep cleaning after him, he’ll never learn.’

‘I -’ Todd begins, but Farah holds up her hand to stop him as her third phone - the one in her top pocket - begins to blip. There are very few people that have the number for it, and they’re all worth responding to right away.

Farah pulls it out. It's a text message from Lydia:

_Video chat? Got a favor to ask! X_

Farah smiles and taps back a reply to ‘hold on’ whilst she gets her laptop ready.

‘Hot date?’ Todd says, teasingly.

‘It’s Lydia.’ Farah swings her bag onto her desk and pulls out her laptop.

‘She’s too young for you,’ Todd sighs. ‘You should date someone older. Someone… mature. And covered in paint.’

Farah raises an eyebrow at the lecherous smirk on Todd’s face. There’s no heat in this kind of teasing. The small flame that Todd had once held for her had been extinguished half a year ago, after Farah had successfully executed mission Get Todd To Realise You’re Gay (Amanda’s name, not hers) which involved a brief lie about an ex-girlfriend coming to visit, a quick (but loud) conversation with Dirk about whether he had ever been to Seattle pride, and Amanda dumping an industrial-size box of dental dams onto her desk, saying it had arrived from Amazon that morning.

Farah’s sure they’re closer friends for it, and the tears of laughter rolling down Todd’s face as his sister started pelting a screaming Dirk with the things probably distracted him from any embarrassment he had felt for barking up the wrong tree.

‘Sure. If you find anyone mature and covered in paint, be sure to let me know,’ Farah replied, with a smirk.

‘Ouch.’

Farah lifts her laptop lid, connects to the WayForward Advanced Secure WiFi and opens Skype.

After three bubbling rings, Lydia picks up.

Lydia is in her room, her large oil painting of several elephants crossing an African savanna at sunset as her background. Her hair is slightly longer from when Farah had last seen her in person over two months ago, and she has cut in a fringe which ends bluntly above her eyes. Her teeth are braceless – shining and white – and her skin is glowing with a healthy tan.

Lydia waves at the camera with half a hand. ‘Hey Farah! How’re you doing?’

‘I’m good! Todd’s here. Say hi, Todd.’

‘Hi, Todd!’ Todd, predictably, shouts from across the office.

Lydia shoots Farah a look, the same familiar look used when her father had expressed jokes of a similar quality. Farah smiles through the wistful sadness pulling at her, Patrick still difficult to think too much about.

‘How’s the weather?’ Farah asks. Lydia is in Antigua, finishing up a two month advanced course in aquatic conservation. It will go far towards her applications for conservation biology in the fall.

‘Beautiful! How’s Seattle?’

‘Raining,’ Farah replies, although she doesn’t check the window. ‘Have you finished your essay?’

Lydia rolls her eyes. ‘Yes. I didn’t call to be mothered, Farah. I’ve got to ask you a favour.’

‘Favour? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine - it’s just the surveyors.’

‘Surveyors?’

‘The ones evaluating the mansion. Well, the - the land. To see how much it will cost for the conservation installation.’ Lydia’s happiness briefly disappears: she darts her eyes from the camera and nervously twists one of the studs in her ears. ‘It’s a good idea, isn’t it? A home for animals - exotic ones, ones that can’t be released because they’ve been domesticated? God - it’s just… _sickening_ that we were a part of that. When I was growing up, I never thought _once_ about how Pepe felt about being here. He must have missed Africa so much.’

Pride blossoms in Farah’s chest. Lydia's love of animals has increased double-fold after the incident with the time machine. If she isn't tweeting articles about poor animal welfare practices, she's tirelessly working to ensure her father's money is being invested in animal-friendly organisations. She's the closest Farah has to a sister, and she couldn't be prouder.

‘What you’re doing is amazing.’

‘It’s like… the least I can do. I mean, I know what it’s like to be trapped somewhere… helpless...’ Lydia shudders. ‘So, um. Yeah, anyway - I got this report from the surveyors that there’s still some sort of… structure below ground.’

Farah thinks quickly. ‘You think it's Patrick’s lab?’

‘That’s what I’m worried about. I can’t sign off on demolition if their construction guys are gonna open it up and find - well. All the stuff that’s down there.’

‘What is down there?’ Todd asks, walking in shot of Lydia’s view and leaning over Farah’s shoulder. He’s trying to scrape some of the paint off his fingers with a rag. ‘The time machine was sent back - that was the whole point.’

‘There are two dead maniacs, for a start,’ Farah mutters. ‘Christ, you can’t even trust the CIA to burn down a building properly.’

She leans back in her chair and exhales, feeling a familiar unwanted burn of loss. Everything she owned had been destroyed in the fire… She couldn’t think about that now. Possessions could be replaced. It was important to look forward, not back.

‘But it’s not necessarily the lab, right?’ Todd says, hopefully. ‘Could be a laundry room. Or like, a secret dungeon.’

‘Why the hell would a secret dungeon be _better_?’

‘In comparison to two murdered hippy cultists, I think I’d prefer it.’

‘Farah, could you and the guys just… check it out? If it is the lab then I’ll just - I don’t know - order a drone strike?’ Lydia offers.

‘Don’t order a drone strike,’ Farah counters, quickly.

‘I was kidding, Farah.’ Lydia gives a sweet smile which makes Farah very glad she's on the side of the girl with a billionaire wealth and a teenager’s restraint.

*

Todd lets Farah drive and distracts himself from the bland, grey suburban streets flicking past the windows of her 4x4 by rolling his iPhone between his hands. His eyes drift over the last messages in a decidedly one-sided text conversation.

_11am wake up text_

_dirk it’s midday wake up_

_dirk goddamn it 1pm_

_dirk we’re going on an errand for lydia. secret basements? possible dead guys? maps?_

_2pm you lazy fuck_

_when you wake up to these messages i hope you feel like an asshole_

Todd smirks at the last message. Dirk will kick himself for missing out. Todd’s already planning on amping up whatever they do find just to rub it in. Although, knowing his luck, it will just be a couple of pissed off rats and a mountain of bricks.

They arrive at where the Spring mansion stood in just under half an hour, rolling to a stop just outside the gates. The gates are still standing, dividing the fencing bordering the land in high-velocity-impact metal chain-link, but the previous electronic security arrangement is long dead, and just a thick chain holds the gates together. Through the gates, Todd can see the desiccated, blackened rubble of the once huge mansion, the remnants of the explosion which blasted through the family home and brought everything to the ground.

Todd watches Farah jump out of the 4x4, crunch across the gravel and twist a key into the padlock. As it clicks open, he can see her shoulders sag. This was her home, not just her place of employment. She had been unable to rescue anything from the wreckage. At that time, Todd had been too preoccupied with rescuing Dirk, with keeping themselves alive, to even ask her whether she wanted to try, but he knows that Farah wouldn’t have even considered it. If Todd could hate his government any more than he already did, he would.

Farah gets back in and breathes sharply through her mouth before dropping the handbrake and beginning the long crawl up the drive.

Todd pulls out the map on the Agency’s WayForward Tablet computer. He splits his fingers on the screen to expand and zoom in on the surveyors blueprints that Lydia has emailed through.

‘It looks like it’s underneath where the west wing was. Is that where the lab would have been?’

‘Maybe. I’m not sure. I - I never really thought about it,’ Farah mutters. ‘Stupid, idiot man. Do you know how dangerous that was?’ Todd shrugs. ‘My father designed the security system, all of it. With that lab, there would have been this - this dead space within the system. Unprotected, unassessed! The entire system would have been inherently flawed. If anyone had come in through the lab - or hidden in it... God, I never would have been able to protect Lydia. By keeping that secret, he put everyone in that house in danger. Stupid. _Selfish_.’

Todd can feel the anger radiating from her like a heat. He decides not to respond.

They park up close to the rubble and get out. Todd holds the map and tries to align it to the GPS overlay display as best as he can - keeping the compass’ north point aligned to north - but Farah soon becomes frustrated and takes it from him.

They walk over bricks and wooden beams, upwards over a mountain of debris, Todd following Farah until she suddenly stops.

‘Here,’ she murmurs.

Todd looks down. There’s nothing to distinguish this wreckage from any other part, but he trusts her. Todd suddenly realises he has no idea what they’re supposed to be doing here. They can’t exactly hand-dig their way through three layers of collapsed mansion.

Farah hands Todd back the tablet computer and pulls out a can of spray paint from her bag. She rattles it and - with occasional glances to the surveyor’s report that Todd holds up for her - proceeds to spray a thick, white oblong on the rubble in roughly the same shape as the area indicated on the map. It’s the size of a smallish room. Todd stands in the centre and tries to remember whether it compared to the size of the lab. He hadn’t exactly been concentrating on architecture at the time.

‘Okay,’ Farah says eventually, stuffing the can back in her bag. ‘So, I’ll order the excavator. We’ll dig down and… see what we can find.’

‘Don’t you have to be licenced for that?’

Farah shoots him a glare. ‘Don’t get started on licences. Who’s the only one who’s actually got their PI licence at this Agency?’

‘That’s not really fair - Dirk doesn’t have his birth certificate.’

‘And your excuse?’

‘Multiple arrests for possession,’ Todd grins, unashamedly proud.

Farah scowls but Todd can tell she’s not that angry. Farah thrives at being the only competent person at the Agency. Plus, it neatly keeps both Todd and Dirk from having to sign anything off.

Farah pulls out her cell and starts politely talking about organising machinery, probably through one of her many shady contacts that Todd actively doesn’t ask about.

He shuffles around aimlessly, kicking at some of the bricks. It’s weird to consider that it’s barely been two years since he had been underneath all of this, cutting Lydia from Rapunzel, Rapunzel from Lydia, and then reforming them both. Todd feels so much older, although not much wiser. This case, the first one, was the first time Todd had seen Dirk’s smile - his _solved it_ smile. Todd’s seen it so much more since then. Todd can’t help grinning just thinking about it, wondering about what he’ll have to do – what _they'll_ have to do - to get the next one.

Something weird catches Todd’s attention: there's a flash of azure blue, flicking through a gap between two sections of burned black wood a few feet from where he’s standing.

Todd pauses and blinks. It might have been a trick of the light.

But then, no, there's another flash. To the left of him this time, and yellow rather than blue. It's sparkling intensely bright, like electricity. It scurries like the first one did, then leaps like a fish up into the air. Todd can see a pair of leathery, bright wings and a mousey face. A bat? It flips in the air and dive-bombs like a seabird, back into the rubble. He doesn't know anything about them, but he’s pretty sure bats don’t do that.

‘Uh… Farah -’ Todd begins, but cuts off as the rubble underneath him begins to quake.

Todd stumbles loses his footing. He falls backwards, onto his ass, and takes half a second to grit his teeth through the flash of pain that goes up his spine.

Pararibulitis. He dives his hand instinctively into his jacket for his pills, but he doesn’t open the bottle. He just clasps it, his body and the rubble shaking violently. There’s something off about this hallucination. Something different. It takes him a few seconds to realise it’s because Farah is shouting at him, that Farah is telling him to _get away_.

She must be seeing this too, feeling this too. It's real. He needs to run.

Todd tries to scramble onto his hands and knees. The bottom falls out of his stomach as everything beneath him gives way.

Todd yelps as his lower half is yanked through a sudden gap beneath him. He scrabbles at the wreckage for a handhold but everything he grabs - bricks, wood, dirt - is loose. He slips through with a strangled cry.

He’s falling, falling in complete darkness, his stomach twisting and gasps he can't control shaking his body.

He sees three blurs with six flapping wings - the yellow and blue from before, with an added green - chirping at him, frantically biting at him.

‘Fuck off!’ Todd shouts, trying to brush them away.

They bite at his hands, claw at his feet, but the basement floor has to be rushing up to meet him. He looks down and his terror is ramped even more than before because what he's seeing cannot be real.

There’s a large crack in the basement floor, a wide gash that Todd feels unequipped to understand. It’s so violently white it’s almost blue. It’s spitting like an angry, electric hell. It’s like nothing Todd has ever seen.

He holds his breath and covers his face as he plummets straight through it like twisting water down a plughole and gives his last thought to the British bastard who is probably still drooling on his pillow.


	2. Not Dead, Then

**Cambridge, Before**

Svlad Cjelli keeps his head down, trying to move discreetly and quickly down the packed corridor. His hands are clutching the books hugged in his arms, his military-issue rucksack a slumped, dead weight on his back. The sheer number of people makes it impossible, and he mumbles ‘sorry’ and ‘apologies’ as he knocks into proud dads tearfully swooping up their teenage sons and daughters, and intense mothers giving short, whispered instructions to concentrate on studying and not get caught up in college life.

There are so many people. So many normal English people. Svlad had thought it would be comforting to be here. He’s beginning to think that might have been wrong. Maybe England, like every single country he’s visited in his life so far, isn’t going to be home.

His pulse is racing and his heart feels nine times too big. He’s sure if anyone even breathed a word at him right now he’d explode into a million pieces.

He counts his steps under his breath as he moves - _one two three, one two three, one two three_ \- and, if he concentrates hard enough, it’s almost like drills. Svlad hated every bloody second of drills, but routine with which he’s familiar is better than the convoluted mess of nothing at all.

After what feels like hours of stepping, he finally reaches the room holding his number. He quickly unlocks his door, avoiding eye contact with the person who is trying to jam an electronic keyboard through the doorway of the room opposite. He's a boy about Svlad's age, maybe slightly younger. He has short, spiky hair and he's swearing at the keyboard ferociously in a deep Scottish accent. Svlad wants to help, but fears if he opens his mouth he'll be sick.

Svlad barrels his way inside and slams the door closed behind him. He drops his books on the floor. He swings his bag off his back and into his arms, and squeezes it.

He presses his back against the door, feeling the strength of the wood behind him. It’s too difficult to keep breathing steadily. His heart is bursting full with hot blood. Tears are stinging in his eyes. He’s going to die of this. Could he _die_ of this?

Svlad yanks open the zip on his duffel bag. He pushes his hands through the meagre contents - a few changes of clothes, an unopened family pack of blue biros, three spiral bound notebooks, a bag of wash stuff, several thick blister packs of tablets, a spare pair of trainers, a wallet stuffed with English currency - until his fingers clasp around a small, well-worn black pile of artificial fur. Bernice the cat, a small plush toy. After eighteen years, she's looking very worse for wear.

He buries his nose in her fur and inhales the weird mix of smells. She’s never been properly washed, only occasionally scrubbed in a sink or river, and the mix she has is heady and deep. It’s the kind of overwhelming amalgamation that Svlad feels safe in, lost to the flood of different memories and experiences that they’ve been through together, and the panic recedes, a monster warded away with a flaming torch.

When creation seems to have settled, Svlad opens his eyes and takes in the room for the first time. It’s bigger than anything he’s known before. Two beds with plastic-covered mattresses. Two small dresser sets standing close together in the far corner. Two empty, light wood bookcases on either side of the room. A large long desk stretching across one wall with two swivel chairs. Everything is twinned, nothing stands alone. Svlad likes that.

A large window just over the desk gives Svlad a good view of the blue sky and - when he stands - he can see a few people milling around the grass in the centre of North Court. More parents. Saying goodbye to their children. Because they love them.

His vision has blurred. Svlad wipes his eyes and decides to unpack, moving all his stuff first to the desk and tipping everything out. It’s a small, pathetic pile of things compared to the naked hugeness of the room. Svlad realises just how much space he’s expected to fill with trepidation.

He puts his three philosophy textbooks on one of the shelves and puts Bernice on top of them, but then quickly second-thinks the decision and picks her up again. He pulls her fur through his fingers soothingly, then puts her in the hood of his jumper, positioned so he can feel the little mother-of-pearl button of her nose against the back of his neck.

He puts his clothes in one of the drawers in the dresser and sets his new wash bag on top, the only just opened pack of pills next to it in easy reach. He makes a neat stack of his notepads and biros on the desk.

He smacks his hands together and looks determinedly towards his next challenge: dressing the bed. Svlad looks around the room, in all the empty drawers and suggestible corners, but can’t find any pillows or even a sheet. Svlad frowns, realising he was probably expected to bring his own.

He looks at his new bed apprehensively. It’s a single, but it seems tall and imposing - much higher off the ground than his cot was and certainly more impressive than any of the dumpsters he’s been recently enjoying. It looks distinctly disgruntled with its nakedness.

‘Where do we buy bedding do you think, Bernice?’ Svlad asks, looking over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of black-fabric ear. ‘These are things I really should have thought about, I know, but I was rather concerned with the textbooks first and foremost.’ Svlad pauses for a second, letting his mind fill in her half of the conversation. ‘There’s no point arguing with me, Bernice, the books were clearly the priority! You just care about the bed because it’s where you spend most of your time - lazy - whereas I’m going to spend most of my time in lectures. Or studying. So, I need the books. Hmm. Do you think the money will stretch to two pillows?’ Svlad muses. ‘I wouldn’t mind two pillows… Then you wouldn’t have to share mine...’

The persistent, unfamiliar noise in the outskirts of his attention elevates into a high, happy laugh which breaks through the wood of his closed door. People. Uncontrolled, directionless people. There are people outside, in the corridor and on the grass. Everywhere, people.

Svlad rubs his arm, feeling small, and reaches his hand over his own head to scratch Bernice’s ear. It makes him feel a little better, but not much. The bed is still looking very high off the ground. He remembers a fairytale, about a princess, who would sleep on tens of stacked mattresses. He gets vertigo just thinking about it.

Svlad gets onto the floor on his knees and brushes away the little skirt that trails around the bottom of the bed.

‘Another drawer!’ Svlad feels insulted now. ‘Oh, sod this. How many things did they presuppose me to own? I’m going to have to make quite a few purchases to fill the expectations they’ve set.’ Svlad pulls the drawer out. ‘No bedding here either. Bugger.’

Svlad realises the bed-drawer is actually rather large and has an idea. He pulls it out fully and then gets inside, pulling his hood up and over his ears, so Bernice is pressed firmly against the back of his head.

When he’s lying down, he shuffles a couple of times, trying to push the drawer in. He lurches his body until the drawer slides on its runners and sweeps Svlad into the darkness under the bed with a satisfying thunk.

Darkness. Quiet. The outside sounds are muffled. Svlad can’t make anything out, even if he strains his ears. Bernice is solid weight underneath his neck. The people are gone. It’s warm. Confining. Comforting.

He’s alone. He knows alone. Svlad shuts his eyes and lets the nothing wash over him.

*

Todd opens his eyes - surprisingly not dead - and is instantly blinded by something huge, yellow and bright. He realises with astonishment that it’s the sun. The sun, far too close. The sun almost vertical from where he is still apparently - and to his infinite terror – falling.

He pushes himself over, swimming in air, until his chest is against the direction of travel. Wind whips fiercely at his hair.

Yep, still falling. Falling now through a clear, powder blue sky. The ground below him is acres of well-watered green and a cold, blue river in a landscape dotted with caramel-coloured buildings and wide city streets. Not Seattle, not that it really matters: Todd assumes all cities are pretty similar when you slam into them at 120mph.

Just when everything starts to make some sort of sense - just when Todd has nearly come to terms with death-by-impromptu-skydive, with the idea that he’s fallen somehow through the core of the planet and he’s about to eat it on the ground of New Zealand - he notices another hole beneath him. This hole is door-sized, door-shaped and door-framed. It is, in fact, an open door, pointed up at him.

At the speed he’s going, he knows it doesn’t matter what he hits . He’s dead anyway. He tries to kick his way towards it anyway, for some sense of well-justified autonomy.

Whether the improvised air-swimming has any effect it’s hard to say, but he does end up diving head first into the open door.

As soon as he passes the threshold, he’s feels something grab his whole body. He’s yanked with the force of a magnet towards one of the walls of the room he’s emerged inside. He slams into it face first and the bones in his skull rattle. There’s considerable pain, but also a bewildering lack of instant death.

As his cheek grates across scratchy carpet, Todd realises that what he’s landed on is not a wall at all but a carpeted floor.

Perspective rotates around him like a trippy Disneyland ride. In lifting his head, he wrestles with his thoughts. Coalescing a single one is as difficult as catching a pinball between two bumpers. His entire head is an explosion of colour and noise. He has no idea why he isn’t dead. All that he knows is he really likes the carpet he’s  laying on - how steady and not fall-y it is - and how he may never move again.

‘Oh dear,’ a voice from somewhere above him mutters. ‘I wasn’t expecting guests. Are you quite alright, young man?’

Silence, for a beat.

‘British,’ Todd mumbles into the carpet, the word offered like a frisbee thrown across his consciousness.

‘Pardon?’

‘Every time bizarre, terrifying and - usually - fucking painful things happen to me, the next voice I hear always has a fucking British accent.’

‘Ah-ha!’ the unknown, elderly English voice crows, delighted. ‘Perhaps you have stumbled on one of those persuasive universal constants that people are always telling me about, dear boy? The light works, the gravity works, the British are always around to comfort after unexpected affliction!’

Todd groans and scratches his temple, having the unsettling feeling that he’s heard a few of those words before. His fingers meet something hot and wet. He brings his hand away and finds his fingers coated in blood.

‘Shit,’ Todd says, wiping his forehead with the heel of his hand, painting that red too. He doesn’t know how badly he’s hurt. The word concussion flickers across Todd’s mind but dies too quickly for him to give it the proper consideration it needs.

Todd rolls onto his back and takes his first look around the room. It's a compact, plush study. It’s been split into two floors the way Todd supposes Ivy League libraries are. The top floor is packed with shelves, heaving with fat books and glittering ornaments. A gold metal barrier surrounds the floor - which about five foot at it’s widest, if that - at about waist height, presumably to stop an unsteady reader from toppling unexpectedly to the ground below them. Access seems to be an unsteady wooden ladder, roped to the two floors.

The bottom floor is what Todd recognises from every TV show about people with old money: a dark wood panelled study, very lived in, but still with an uncomfortable air as if it can’t quite settle itself. Every surface is filled with notepads, documents, open books. A free standing reading lamp shines brightly on a pile of paper notes almost Todd’s height.

The light stings and Todd looks away - wincing as it drives up the intensity of his encroaching headache - and towards two red-velvet wingback chairs in the centre of the room, looking at each other across a small coffee table. One of the chairs is occupied by a slumped, small man with tight black curls whose dark eyes are blazing in alarm.

‘Oh, heavens, you’re hurt!’ the man says, then pauses. ‘Unless you prefer your face leaking like that? Whom am I to judge on fashion…?’

‘Uh,’ Todd says, feeling very unintelligent. His left eye flutters close as some blood leaks over it. Todd wipes at it ineffectively, trying not to be worried with how much he appears to be bleeding and how difficult thinking is. ‘Shit - uh. Do you have a - uh – bandage?’

‘Ah - yes - well, something like that but not entirely… ah!’

The man gets up, rising to a grand height of five-two if that, not helped by a pronounced stoop in his back. He shuffles off at a surprising speed to a desk, opens some drawers and starts rummaging in them.

‘Yes - erm - let me see, ah, fine. Right, this will do,’ the man slams the last drawer shut. ‘Quickly, my man - could you please assure me you are currently of good health and statute?’

Pain is beginning to properly stab at the fleshy parts of Todd’s brain, and he’s desperately trying to hold onto the patience he reserves for British maniacs. It’s getting very difficult to put words together.

‘Uh, y-yes, I guess -’ Todd answers, finding he’s already forgotten what he was asked.

There’s a clatter - the man hurrying around the desk - and Todd can feel blood dripping off his nose and onto the carpet.

The man is now blurry and indistinct, but when stoops over him, Todd can see his eyes in sharp relief. They’re frantic but focused, like an intensely interested ferret.

‘Homosapian? Earthian? Terranatural? I ask not to pass judgement on your celestial origins you understand - it’s a valid concern considering the instrument.’

‘Uh.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s -’ the man takes in an irritated breath. ‘Are. You. Human?’

‘Duh. W’re’you on ab -’ Todd hisses as the man pinches his left ear. ‘What - y’doing -’

Todd’s head feels stuffed with expanding cotton, bringing his skull closer and closer to exploding under the pressure. It hits him in a wave how desperately he wants to be asleep.

He hears clicking, somewhere, outside the encroaching darkness. Todd thinks he can see the man holding a piece of blue plastic. Todd squints and with great effort makes out something which might be an over the ear hearing-aid.

The blur moves and Todd distantly feels something going over his ear, snapping into place. There’s an instant rush of heat, like melting caramel oozing over that side of his face.

‘Hold still -’

Todd tries desperately to keep his eyes open.  The man pulls a small screwdriver from his sleeve like a magician’s wand, presses it against Todd’s skull - against whatever thing is causing the oozing, hot caramelly feeling - and twiddles. Irritated squeaking, as if a series of tiny screws are complaining at being moved, scratches at his brain.

‘Ooh.’ Todd feels his cheeks light up as strong warmth shudders from the top of his spine to the tips of his toes. It’s intensely pleasurable, like someone is sinking his entire body into a vat of warm soap.

It’s so overwhelmingly weird that it takes a few moments to notice when the pleasurable feeling has stopped, the man has removed his hands and has started talking.

‘There! That should hold at least until we get you to hospital. Well, in fact, it could last infinitely - these devices are very sturdy, an absolute beauty of engineering -’

Todd blinks, feeling suddenly energised. The swamp that had been his muddled thoughts has drained in an instant and he’s been left clean and sharp. He gingerly lifts his fingers to his ear. The device - whatever it is - doesn’t feel anything more than slightly rough plastic. It’s sitting snugly behind his ear.

‘What is this?’

‘The original name is unpronounceable with only a singular genioglossus,’ the man says, excitedly, as if Todd would know what the hell a genioglossus was. ‘It’s a sort of… biological adjustment device. I’ve used it to cover your cuts and to delay that nasty concussion. You may have a skull fracture; I believed it pertinent you didn't succumb, at least not until after I have offered you hospitality.’

‘Uh.’ Todd prods at his hairline, where he had felt blood earlier. The skin feels smooth and firm underneath his fingers. His fingers come back dry. ‘Oh. Um, thanks?’

‘No matter! No matter! We travellers must look out for others. Would you like a cup of tea? Coffee? You still look quite shocked - something which can only be solved with a hot drink; the classic solutions are often the most reliable, don’t you find?’

‘Um - coffee?’ Todd says, weakly.

The man nods, grins and shuffles away into another room.

Todd is left alone, feeling bewildered and somewhat assaulted. He’s swamped with the urge to get out of here, wherever here happens to be.

He shakily gets to his feet. Looking around, there’s only one very obvious door to the outside which is, unfortunately, the same one he had hurtled through just a few minutes prior.

Gingerly, he walks towards it, puts his hand on the handle and pulls with a twist. It opens eagerly inwards.

There is only sky. Pale blue sky, with a dusting of light, wispy cloud. There’s a light breeze, bringing with it the scent of fresh grass and summer.

Feeling experimental, Todd stretches his arm out of the doorway. As soon as he does, his arm becomes weighty - heavy with an eagerness to spring back towards Todd’s face.

Todd pulls it back. The moment his hand passes through the doorframe, the feeling vanishes.

Todd does this a few times, mostly with his hand but once with his foot. Each time the same thing happens.

He hears a jingle of china behind him and an embarrassed cough.

‘Ah. Yes. Quite awkward, that,’ the man says, now holding a large silver tray with two china cups, a pot of tea, a small porcelain milk jug and a silver carafe filled with thick, brown coffee.

‘The doorway is pointing upwards,’ Todd says, working it out. ‘It’s a portal. It’s pointing out upwards, but from this side it’s across, so gravity is working towards the door when you’re outside, but towards the floor when you’re in. That’s… amazing.’

Todd thinks back to his physics classes - the ones he was taking before he discovered pot, sex and The Mexican Funeral - and remembers something about conservation of energy and fundamental forces. He hadn’t died because the switch in gravity had slowed his forward momentum; he had been slowed by the assertion of gravity in a new direction. He had, briefly, orbited some of the kinetic energy away, although apparently not enough to avoid a skull fracture.

Todd has the feeling - not for the first time - that all this phenomena is wasted on him, the dropout that couldn’t make it two years through a physics major. Although, it might be for the best. An actual academic would probably have an aneurysm over the flexing of time-and-space accompanying Todd’s daily life.

‘Yes - you are essentially correct, my only quibble would be with the word ‘portal’. It’s not so much a portal as it is… well, it’s a bit complicated,’ the man says, pouring milk into one of the china cup.

‘Complicated,’ Todd echoes, each case from past two years flicking past his eyes. ‘Try me.’

*

_Music._

Svlad wakes, tries to sit up and slams his head into the underside of his new Cambridge bed.

He crashes back down, into Bernice, who gives a pathetic parp of air from her broken squeaker in irritation.

‘Ow!’ Svlad hisses, and glares maliciously through the darkness into the box springs. ‘I hate you!’

He attempts to rub his forehead, but - finding the angle unhelpful - decides to swing his way out of his impromptu sleeping place instead.

The music - the music that had woken him, tearing him out of blissful dreamless sleep - is a lot clearer once he’s out from under the bed, coming from outside his door.

Svlad props himself sitting up against the bed frame and listens as he rubs feeling back into his dead legs.

The music is unlike anything Svlad has ever heard. It’s not the tight, tidy rhythms from perfected orchestras he’s been exposed to as part of the experiments on audiocentric prediction. Nor is it overtly saccharine, quick or catchy, like the commerical jingles that the grey-suited parapsychology technicians were too lazy to rip from the daily News Exposure film reels. It’s also not like the snippets from audio dramas he could hear from windows when he was hiding from the rain, frost and alleyways in Central Europe. It’s something completely different.

It sounds like it's from something with strings, although it’s a lot fuller than a guitar and without the warble Svlad expects from anything played with a bow. It’s not deep enough to be a double bass, and Svlad wonders whether it could be plucking at some type of violin, but there’s a resonating which doesn’t make sense.

No, this has to be a new instrument - something Svlad’s never heard before. Exciting, interesting, tempting… a mystery.

Mystery.

Connection.

_Terror. Fear. Pain._

_The smell of disinfectant and the white hot pain of a needle being pushed in his spinal column._

_‘- we can’t use anesthesia; we need Icarus awake -’_

Svlad’s throat is desert dry. He wrestles in his hoodie for Bernice but she’s not there. He’s left her in the drawer, in the dark. There’s no comforting smell, nothing to cover the sting of the medicine, the snap of latex gloves.

_‘No! Please, no!’_

He’s trembling. Drenched in cold sweat. The sharp smell of bleach is pricking at his eyes, infesting his nose. He can hear angry shouting, yelling, barked orders. He’s spinning, strapped to the wall, in that horrible machine, CRT’s blistering on his dry, unblinkable eyes.

_‘- find the connection, find the connection -’_

Svlad pushes himself onto his feet and stumbles to the bathroom.

He crashes to the floor, knees smacking the tile, and rips up the toilet lid just before his stomach empties itself into the basin.

Retching breaks across him as his body squeezes in tight, agonising pulses, his face on fire, tears streaming down his face, his mouth stinging with acid.

Over and over and over and over. It feels like hours. When his body has no more to give, he dry heaves a few times and then shakily smacks the flush.

He purposefully looks upwards, gulping blissfully cool air, rather than at the remains of his pitiful airport breakfast being sucked away.

He puts his hands on his knees and presses his forehead against the cool porcelain of the toilet.

‘Banjo,’ he croaks, and holds his shaking body tightly as he dissolves into sobs.

*

‘Your office is a time machine,’ Todd summarises, far too used to the shit the universe pulls to sound surprised.

He’s sitting in the spare chair, drinking some quite amazingly good coffee, dark and teeth-suckingly bitter. The man - now introduced properly as Professor Chronotis or, more preferred, Reg - is sitting opposite him, bouncing his leg youthfully.

‘Yes. It’s more my home than my office, of course. Makes it far easier when I’m on excursions - no need for that exhausting business of having to go back in time to book a hotel room for a visit you’ve already taken. I’m rather forgetful, you see. I could envision myself with the frankly Herculean task of making reservations in every Premier Inn from now to the Big Bang just to ensure the best likelihood of somewhere for a nice kip sometime in the future - or past - or, whenever, really. It’s this time business you see; really does fuck about with the tenses -’ Reg cuts off and looks around, a little confused. ‘Sorry, where was I?’

Todd puts his empty cup on the table.

‘Uh. Time machine?’

‘Ah, yes, of course! Where is yours, may I ask?’

‘Er, I don’t - I don’t have one. I kind of fell through some sort of… rip.’

‘Fell?’ Reg looks sympathetic. ‘My dear boy, I am sorry that your introduction to time travel was so unexpected.’

‘Oh, it’s not the first time I’ve done it. It seems to have become a recurring feature in my life. The Agency actually specialises in -’ Todd’s brain flares with panic. The Agency. _Farah_. The last she saw of him, he was falling through an electric crack in the ruins of a CIA-decimated mansion. And now he’s drinking coffee in a plush chair. God, why is he such a naturally uncaring asshole?

‘Are you alright?’

‘Uh - it’s just - my friends. I didn’t exactly warn them I was going anywhere.’ Todd scrambles in his pocket for his phone.

‘Anywhen,’ Reg corrects. ‘What time period are you from?’

‘2018,’ Todd frowns. ‘Wait -' Todd brain races to catch up with the conversation. ' _Am I in the past?’_ At Reg's nod, Todd lets out an exasperated breath. 'How do you know – how do you know I'm not from... now?'

‘Your clothes, your general dishevelment, your bemused approach to life. My condolences on the century, by the way - terrible mess - but, never mind; that’s a wait of merely a decade and some spare change. I’m sure you’ll be able to pick up exactly where you left off - maybe within the same conversation. That’s always a fantastic trick -’ Reg says, leaning in conspiratorially. ‘You begin your sentence before leaping into the closest bush, then complete it whilst bursting from an ornate concrete tiger! They never see it coming!’

‘What? No! I’m not... waiting! Can’t you… drop me off or something?’

Reg’s shakes his head sadly, pursing his lips as if his tea had transformed to lemon juice.

‘As evidenced by our doorway to the sky problem, my time machine is not fully functioning. It is in fact, to use a light colloquialism, fucking stuck.’

Todd finally looks at his phone. The screen is cracked, but it’s otherwise unharmed. No signal. Of course.

‘Can’t you fix it?’ Todd asks weakly, fearing he can already predict the answer.

‘Oh, I can barely operate the microwave,’ Reg says cheerily, seemingly proud. ‘I often find the best solution is to wait and see when it comes to the dohickies in the machinery.’

‘Wait? How long?’

‘Ah, there you go with that chronological nonsense again. Remember the nature of time travel!’ Reg says admonishingly, tapping his hand firmly on the coffee table. ‘If you are to return to your friends wherever you left them, you will do so within a blink of their eye! They won’t even know you were gone!’

*

**Seattle, Now**

Dirk Gently's bedroom window bursts apart. Dirk Gently himself blearily lifts his head.

He peers over his bed to the brick that has suddenly appeared on his floor, surrounded by shards of glass. He concludes that it is possible - even probable - that the two things are related.

‘Dirk!’ It's Amanda Brotzman’s voice, shouting from the street outside. That makes it _more_ than probable. A mystery solved, and barely - Dirk blinks and passes his eyes over the illuminated red display of his alarm clock – quarter to four in the afternoon. He’s already doing _exceedingly_ well. There’s no sense in ruining the start of what is bound to be a highly impressive day with waking up so abruptly. Five more minutes.

Dirk pushes his head back into his pillow, enjoying the slight breeze from his shattered window.

‘Dirk - it’s Todd!’

Dirk’s eyes snap open.

*

Dirk has chewed every one of his nails down to skin by the time they reach the Spring Mansion. He would usually consider an impressive feat of dexterity taking into account the fact he was driving, but there are more important things at stake.

Amanda tears her ear away from the sound of Todd’s default voicemail and angrily slaps her cellphone with an open hand. ‘I hate technology!’

They slide out, slam the doors to the bumblebee-yellow Veyron and sprint past the open gates.

The rubble of the mansion has been swarmed by high-visibility wearing rescue teams and large machinery. People are shouting at each other, pitiful against the skull-shaking noise of drilling into resistant brick.

An ambulance crew of two - looking shiny and reassuringly expensive next to their sleek, silver-and-green ambulance - are strapping themselves into climbing harnesses and buckles, weaving them around their legs.

Dirk spots Farah, standing apart from them all, barking orders at the team she’s no doubt responsible for assembling.

‘Dirk,’ she sighs, relieved, as they race up.

She braces her heels on the ground and Amanda collides into her, throwing her arms around her. Farah buries her face in her hair and kisses it, holding her tight.

‘What’s happening?’ Dirk asks. The activity is frantic around them and Dirk isn’t sure whether to be comforted or alarmed by how many people are there. ‘Have they found -’

‘Nothing yet,’ Farah says reassuringly, not yet releasing Amanda from her hold. ‘I’m on it. I’ve pulled every favour I’ve got - every construction crew in Washington is either here or on their way.’

‘I don’t understand -’ Amanda says, pulling her head away from Farah’s chest, looking up at her. ‘How have they not found him?’

Farah shuts her eyes and tenses her jaw against something. Dirk has a sinking feeling. When Farah opens her eyes again, she’s looking at Dirk.

‘It collapsed after he fell. He’s - he’s buried.’

‘Buried,’ Dirk echoes, numbly. He’s unable to grasp the enormity of what the word suggests. Buried. His best friend, trapped under a mountain of rubble.

Dirk’s lips twitch, but he can’t vocalise. Everything he wants to say implies something awful: that there’s a possibility Todd isn’t okay, or maybe even worse. And that can’t be the case. Todd is completely fine. He has to be. It isn't possible that he's not.

‘Fuck,’ Amanda’s voice shakes. Farah pulls her back into a tight embrace, resting her clenched jaw on her shoulder.

Dirk feels cold.

*

**Cambridge, Before**

They agree on an improvised plan, Todd helpless to argue against Reg’s insistence that patience is key and his office - time machine, space machine, whatever - will self-correct just given the… well, _time_ it needs.

‘You’ll stay in North Court,’ Reg says, passing Todd a small brassy key on a large plastic fob. ‘The room number is on the label; We had a late admission to Philosophy and he has yet to be paired with a roommate. I was going to offer the switch to my new tutee - this room is rather large; I thought it may work in favour of him completing his degree. It may surprise you to know a lot of my prior students have an unfortunate habit of dropping out.’

‘Very surprising,’ Todd mutters, ironing the sarcasm from his voice and taking the key. He didn't have a tutor at UW - just a series of lecturers who had clearly given up the fight to inspire enthusiasm for electromechanics in a bunch of hungover freshmen - but despite that, he’s pretty sure having a tutor like Reg wouldn’t have helped keep him in any longer.

‘Have you got any money?’ Reg asks.

‘Uh,’ Todd puts his hand in his pocket, pulls out a few crumpled dollars and some coins. He looks at the dates on the bills and finds them unfortunately new-ish.

‘Never mind - adopt the expression of someone entirely blank of any independent thought or enthusiasm for widening the extent of your small little world. I’m sure you will be mistaken quite easy for a student, and they all seem to remain alive whilst unfunded.’

After processing Reg’s convoluted phrasing, Todd raises an eyebrow. ‘I’m thirty-four.’

‘Ah, the age thing. Yes. Just a brief moment -’ Reg moves towards him, his hand lifted, motioning to Todd’s ear, where the plastic thing is still clipped. ‘May I?’

Todd shrugs because he’s not sure he can do anything else. Reg puts his fingers behind the shell of Todd’s ear and dials begin to click.

‘The unfortunate thing is the retrosettings are biocoded to my particular xenotrophia,’ Reg murmurs. ‘So I will have to make some on-the-fly adjustments, as it were…’

Todd opens his mouth to ask what any of those words meant, but the caramelly melty feeling descends over him, making it difficult to stay standing.

‘It’s nothing dangerous, of course.’ _Click. Click click click._ ‘You’ll be influenced by a few genotypes you’ve perhaps not preferred in the past - few polymorphic expressions being slightly jittered, you see. Very little chance of you growing an extra leg. Right, so that should be -’

The world goes _whumph_.

Todd inhales sharply like a drowning man breaking the surface. Everything has changed. Colours are different, lighter and brighter. The air tastes weird, mustier. He’s on the floor. It’s not much of a comfort to find he’s still in Reg’s office.

‘Ugh,’ he manages, eloquently. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. He puts his hands flat to either side of him and pushes himself upright.

The carpet feels scratchy under his hands, but not quite. It's almost the opposite - his _hands_ feel _soft_. Todd brings his hands to his face and experiences a visual equivalent of two entirely separate tunes being played at once. The hands that he is moving - the ones attached to him - are hands that he does not recognise. There are none of the scars burns or scratches of his own palms. The nails are ragged, slightly too long. The callouses on his fingers - the achievement of years of guitar playing - are gone. He stares, transfixed with almost horror.

‘Ah, you’re awake.’

Todd snaps his head up at Reg drinking another cup of tea in his chair. Todd waves the inexplicable, maddening, _not his_ hands at him.

‘What did you do?!’ Todd yelps. He tries to get to his feet but they don’t seem right either. They don’t take his weight and his ankle twists in a way his ankle has never twisted and he falls to his knees _which also feel wrong_.

‘Oh, come on,’ Reg says, exasperated. ‘I barely changed anything. There’s no need to be over dramatic.’

‘Why can’t I learn -’ Todd begins, shuffling across to the coffee table, ‘- to stop expecting the expected and to stop trusting insane people?’ Todd pulls himself upright. He wobbles and leans on the chair, holding himself up with the back. He glares at Reg, who is holding a sarcastic brow up for him. ‘Tell me what you did!’

‘I reduced your age to something more suitable,’ Reg says, matter-of-factly. ‘Twenty, roughly. That device wasn’t created with Sol in mind, makes the conversion difficult -’

‘I -’ Todd shakes his head, too many questions to ask at once. He dislodges one. ‘What?’

‘Honestly!’ Reg snaps. ‘You don’t listen to anything… ah ha!’ Reg suddenly smiles. ‘How perfect. Please, continue with your obtuse attitude; you are far exceeding in the guise of a Cambridge student. Keep dim, Todd Brotzman, and we shall go to dinner.’

‘No!’ Todd shouts. Reg’s eyes go wide; startled by the force of it. ‘No, I’m not - I’m not doing this! You’ve - you’ve -’ Todd scrambles for the device on his ear.

‘No - don’t!’ Reg cries, stumbling over to him. Something in his voice makes Todd pause and unwrap his fingers from the strangely warm device. ‘I understand you’re upset - perhaps I acted rashly - but that device is currently holding your skull together. If you remove it, the shock of returning to your injuries is likely to result in a bloody, skull-shattering death. Think of the carpets! I’ve just had them cleaned.’

‘Then - then change me back! You can do that, right?’

Reg scrunches his nose. ‘Yes, of course, I could change you back, but how would that be a benefit? This way, you are just one of three hundred new undergraduates under the current misconception that they are suited to academia. Disguised. Unnoticed. Perfectly, fundamentally ordinary,’ Reg says, wrapping his arm around Todd’s shoulder.

‘Don’t touch me.’

‘Ah,’ Reg says, taking his arm away. ‘Duly noted.’


	3. Black Lines

**Cambridge, Before**

Svlad returns to his room after induction, yawning. He dumps the thick wad of laminated sheets, leaflets and flyers gathered from the freshers’ fair on his bed and stares at them, too overwhelmed to even start.

Too many colours. Too many things. Everyone had wanted him to be everything - the college rowers had sized him up with hungry grins, the badminton team had menacingly bounced shuttlecocks in his direction, every political party hounded him with accusations and frankly revolting ideas of achieving power… 

He had been everywhere, spoken to everyone, and yet Svlad feels as if he had accomplished nothing more than overwhelming exhaustion. Everyone Svlad had met only seemed able to communicate in bizarre references to things he didn’t understand. No, he hadn’t seen the match. No, he hadn’t heard about Frank Skinner’s controversial comments. No, he had no opinion on Descartes’ approach to rationalism.

Svlad’s life is incomparable to those of the nervously twitching St Cedd’s intake. Their past year will have been entrance exams, extracurriculars and advanced classes, whilst Svlad’s has been a blur of white-noise nothingness. Before then, they would have had parents, siblings and schooling whilst Svlad was living hand-to-mouth, dirty and poor, getting along in Central and Eastern Europe whilst trying to return to a childhood home he still only remembers in vague shapes and colours. And even before that, instead of happy childhood memories of sunny beaches and grassy fields, Svlad has only the experiments, the loneliness, the isolation of the facility. 

Svlad had felt stuffed with things to talk about, but when it came to conversation with another human being he was apparently unable to do anything more constructive than nod, smile and try not to cry. He just can't understand how he can be so desperate to connect with someone - anyone - yet at the same time be entirely disabled from doing so.

A thought arrives with treacherous implication. Svlad hasn't always been like this. The past year has changed him. The tablets, the medication. What he had to do in exchange for Cambridge.

Svlad can’t think about it. He just wants to give up. He just wants to sleep. 

Svlad shakes his head at himself. He doesn’t want to sleep, not really. It’s an unfortunate side effect of the medication. He’s been told to expect that. Although, he wasn’t told it would make his stomach hurt, his fingers tremble with anxiety, his brain flood with obsessive, critical thoughts...

He’s not thinking straight. That stuff isn’t true; the tablets _help_. He’s here. He couldn’t be here without them.

Svlad runs his eyes over his digital watch. There's still a good half-hour left until the next dose. It’s always hardest at the tail end, when the comforting fog lifts and the world begins to resolve. Difficult to block things out, or to concentrate.

Svlad spreads out the flyers on his (still naked) bed the best he can. He can dismiss a few out of hand. Anything with alcohol, which would mess with his medication. Anything with politics would mess with his brain. Anything which he knows he won't be able to bring himself to go to alone is out too.

By the time he’s done, there are only three left. A running club - which Svlad at least has the shoes for - the college’s Philosophy Soc - which will be useful for his course - and a flyer for an amateur music performance that Svlad doesn’t remember picking up. 

The flyer appeals, but Svlad doesn’t know why. It has three young men on the front. One is slamming sticks onto a large selection of angry red drums, his hair whipping sweat into the air. The second is strangling a thin guitar by the neck, his face screwed into something akin to torture. The third is bending a microphone stand down like a dipping dance partner, apparently screaming into its neck. It reads along the bottom:

**AMATEUR BANDS WEEKLY**

****

**SHORE’S BAR**

****

**34 WESTERHAY AVENUE**

****

Something about the flyer is important. Svlad’s fingers twitch as he reaches out to touch it and examine it closer. His breath leaves him as his mind puts a word to the familiar feeling creeping over him.

_Hunch._

His stomach lurches and he freezes. Svlad stays as still as he can. He feels sick but he doesn’t feel imminently close to vomiting, which is good. The feeling - the thing - has caused a dull ache in his stomach and a bright pain to flare in his temples. 

Feeling a bit of a masochist, Svlad holds himself still and keeps the pain steady. The more he thinks about the flyer, the more the pain increases. When he slips his eyes away, the pain recedes.

Svlad looks at his watch. Forty-nine minutes to go until his next dose. He curses. He’ll have to deal with this the best he can, without his medication at its full force.

Hunch. Svlad thinks the word and scowls. He had found the word “hunch” in his dictionary when he was very young. The dictionary was one of the few books he was allowed in the facility, although it was full of thick, black lines. Svlad is sure there’s a word for the thick black lines, but he’s also sure that word was probably underneath a thick black line itself.

The dictionary definition had read:

_noun_

1\. a feeling, often inexact, based on intuition rather than fact.

Svlad - who has always considered himself profoundly inexact - leapt on this term immediately.

Now, with the event of this medication, the hunches show themselves for what they truly are. If Svlad still had that dictionary, he would provide his own addendum to the definition - perhaps scrawled into the margin.

_noun_

1.a feeling, often inexact, based on intuition rather than fact. unintended connection-making through the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. hurts. a lot. would not recommend!!!

Hunch is now the word for when the spiderwebs descend. Thick, swampy and sticky: covering Svlad’s mouth and nose and making it impossible to breathe. It’s the word for when everything blitzes into a painful, migraine-inducing white and he can’t see anything but the overwhelming storm of nothing. It’s the word for when the sweats come, when his stomach pitches and his legs give out and he definitely, definitely would not recommend.

Svlad thinks the word banjo. It comes with a lot less pain than last time. He breathes heavily through the tremors and forces himself to pick up the flyer. Banjo was a hunch too. Banjo and a music flyer. The urge to connect the dots is staggering. But he can't. He knows he can't.

He toys with the slightly thickened paper between his thumb and forefinger, trying not to think about the things likely to set him off. He would quite like to keep his lunch in. It was a good lunch.

He needs to get rid of the flyer as soon as he can.

Careful of his grumbling stomach and the sweat beading through the headache, he walk to the door of his room, unlocks it and slips outside. 

Standing at the door opposite, Svlad bends over and slips the flyer into the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. His neighbour - the one with the blonde hair; the electronic keyboard; and a black poster on his door with coloured light refracted through a triangular prism - is most probable source of the banjo music earlier. He probably likes music. He might even have a band. Even if this hunch can mean nothing to Svlad, maybe it’s something that the banjoist could enjoy. Maybe he can have some fun. Maybe he can make some friends.

With the flyer gone, the hunch, the sickness and the spiderwebs also vanish. The relief is overwhelming, but a sickening sense of dread is still heavy in Svlad’s blood. Two attacks in one day, after almost a week of nothing. He’s not getting any better. 

Svlad hates himself a little more and resolves to sit quietly in his room until it’s time for his next dose.

*

Since the door is out of action, Todd has to use the window to get out of Reg’s office. He scales down the thick ivy-like crawlers and lands awkwardly in one of the finely trimmed hedges which border the college lawn. 

After wandering around for a bit in the incoming dusk, Todd manages to find the main gates. He nods his head awkwardly at one of the porters, who frowns meaningfully at him. Todd feels very hot under his new skin, very false. The porter can’t know who Todd is or what has just happened, of course. He just has a glare which telegraphs his utter dissatisfaction with how his life turned out. Todd is very familiar with that one - he himself perfected it during his employment at the Perryman Grand.

With nothing to do, Todd decides to walk the city to clear his head. There’s a sense of unreality in the close stone buildings that Todd thinks is less to do with the time-travel and more to do with the weird combination of high-tech, glassy offices stuck in between seventeenth century architecture. It’s the first time Todd’s been out of the US. He’d never been interested in foreign travel, but looking at the intricate brickwork and small cafes tucked away - all shut for the night - Todd feels like he can see why other people would be. Everything seems smaller and older, less purposeful and more naturally sprawling. The US is so designed and functional in comparison to the buildings here, shoved where they can in a fight for enough space to breathe and display their shop fronts like eager peacocks.

Todd walks over a bridge and pauses in the middle. There are lights distantly flickering on the dark water, and the echoes of happy, drunk shouting. On either side of the river there are large boat houses stretching into the water, lit up in pale yellow light. The wind, brisk and cold, picks up some of the scent of the river below. 

Todd stares down into the water, murky and dark. He feels very out of place, and very wrong.

‘Hey, mate?’

Todd looks up. Some guy is walking towards him, from the direction Todd came. He’s a head taller, thin and with spiked-blonde hair. His large black shirt is baggy, two sizes too big, and with a small design on the left breast. A prism, scattering white light into six beams of colour. It’s worn and faded, like it’s been through far too many wash cycles.

‘Sorry - do you know the way to Shore’s bar?’ the guy asks, his accent heavily Scottish. He digs into his leather jacket pocket and pulls out a flyer, and reads off it: ‘Uh, 34 Westerhay Avenue?’

‘I’m a bit lost myself,’ Todd shrugs. The guy’s face falls. The silence between them isn’t exactly awkward, but Todd feels the need to break it anyway. ‘Pink Floyd?’ Todd offers, gesturing at the shirt.

The guy instantly lights up. Todd wonders if he’s one of the hundreds of undergraduates that Reg has alluded to. It's the first day for most of the first years at St. Cedd's. Todd remembers how he felt on his first day at college, after he had hugged Amanda and his parents goodbye and was left alone in his very sterile dorm room. Isolated and alone. It didn’t get much better. It was mostly his fault - he was never any good at making friends. No wonder his college experience ended the way it did.

‘Yep. Genuine jacket this one - from their Wall tour, 1981,’ the guy grins.

The part of Todd’s mind dedicated to music lurches with nerd-fueled excitement. ‘Last real tour - before, you know. Walters left. Asshole. Shit, I would have killed to see them live.’

‘You’re telling me. Got this from a charity shop, they had no idea what they had. Would pay all ma inheritance to go get ma ear drums blown out by Gilmour.’

The man reaches into his jacket again and pulls out two pre-rolled cigarettes. He offers one to Todd. Todd hesitates for barely half a second before taking it, and then the black zippo lighter which shortly follows.

Sucking down his first cigarette of three months feels like heaven. Todd blows the smoke into the air and shudders with the relief the nicotine brings. At least some things are timeless and universal.

‘Thanks,’ Todd says. ‘Sorry I can’t be any help.’

‘Don't you worry about it,’ the guy says, turning to face the river with him. ‘I dunno why I’m going really. Someone just pushed the flyer under ma door an’ I need a break from tryin’ to set up my computer. They haven’t even run ethernet into our rooms you know - I’m havin’ to swing a LAN cable down two floors, round the houses and into the porter’s office. Best technology department in the world, my arse.’

‘No Wi-Fi?’

‘What, on a campus this large?’ the guy laughs, as if the idea is a joke. Todd tries to remember when he first used Wi-Fi.

Technology aside, Todd finds it particularly easy to talk to the guy. He eventually gives his name as Richard. Todd - recalling Farah’s instruction of keeping undercover - opts to giving his usual false identity, that of his old college roommate Steve Mander. Richard has an in-depth knowledge of prog rock which Todd easily falls into rhythm with, and they have a furious debate on the unanswerable ‘Rolling Stones vs Beatles’. Richard has a quick wit and tends to run his mouth off, which Todd finds comforting.

‘Fucking cold out here,’ Richard mutters after a few minutes, shuffling in his jacket. ‘We could always… move on. If you want.’

Todd doesn’t know if it’s a good idea, but it is cold and only getting colder. The city is alive on the other side of the river, packed with college kids who are screaming their lungs out and drinking enough liquid to drown a small country. 

‘Just a quick pint,’ Richard clarifies. ‘Try and find that bar. If you want, I mean.’

Todd’s on his second cigarette. His mouth is dry and he’s in a strange, fucked up country at over a decade in the past, with no way to talk to his friends or his sister, who could very well believe he’s dead. He finds there’s nothing he wants more than to get absolutely and completely fucked up.

*

Svlad wakes to the sound of his door opening. Red, hot anxiety floods him and he clutches at his bare bed, pushing his nose further into Bernice’s fur, who is helpfully doubling as a pillow. He fingers at his baggy grey gym hoodie - wrapped around him, an impromptu blanket - and opens his eyes in the darkness.

He’s not in a dodgy, stinky shelter. He’s not in a faceless, hostile facility. He’s at university. In England. St. Cedd’s College. _Cambridge._ He remembers the fantastic excitement of the last few days in a flood of images, sweetened with relief. 

The door shuts and someone stumbles across the floor, towards the en-suite shower room and toilet.

He has two choices. Remain still, apparently asleep, and delay greeting his roommate - assuming this is his roommate, and not some random individual in desperate pursuit of his toiletries - until the morning, or wake up, introduce himself and make the acquaintance of the person who will - no doubt - be his confidant and best friend for the next year. He finds himself shaking. He doesn’t know whether with fear or excitement.

Svlad hears the sound of the toilet lid being thrown open and someone throwing up. Svlad winces sympathetically. Poor toilet. Twice in one day, treated so poorly. 

Toilet compassion aside, this gives Svlad some more options. He could go to his roommate, ask whether they need anything. Ask his roommate whether they’re sick, whether they would like some water - which Svlad could get him - or medicine or tea or food from the refectory or - or _anything_.

Svlad’s midway through planning the route from his room to the pop-up canteen sited just a few minutes away in Lower Court when the person stumbles back through the toilet door. 

Svlad can see the shadow of someone stumble once, twice and then land face-down on the empty bed next to him. The snoring starts almost immediately.

Svlad shrinks back, disappointed. Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow he’ll be the best roommate in existence, and completely make up for all his inadequacies.

*

**Seattle, Now**

‘... via now obsolete WayForward operating systems, the computer virus has spread like wildfire.  A simple message of unknown origin, the virus is capable of both infecting a target computer and then reprogramming it to pass on both the message and the facility for replication. This has led to an endless ‘lock up’ cycle which has crippled schools, hospitals and government departments across Eastern and Central Europe. We reached out to the CEO of WayForward technologies for comment...’

Dirk isn’t watching the television. The woman in a floral patterned dress is speaking at him, rather than to him, and the pizza in his box is stone cold. The pizza which is in his box which is on his stomach, which is splayed out because he’s lying, stretched, on his sofa as he has been for the past eight hours. It turns out that, if you promise to tip well, you can persuade adventurous and handsome young delivery persons to scale fire escapes and throw pizza boxes through open windows, which is exceedingly helpful because Dirk isn’t sure whether he’ll ever move again.

‘...WayForward are working with all organisations affected by the outbreak. We are stressing the importance of data backup, proper network security and enabling all update patches. We would like to repeat that all the affected systems are legacy equipment - not recommended to be in active service - and that the virus is shown to be completely harmless to those users on WF 10.6 Operating Systems or higher.’

Farah’s message is in Dirk’s phone, unread. Dirk doesn’t need to read it. He knows what it says. Not because he’s psychic - because he’s not - but because anyone could work out why Farah would message him rather than call him, or visit him, and why Amanda hasn’t said anything at all.

‘In local news, Search and Rescue teams have called off their fortnight long search for a Seattle man who fell into the wreckage of an abandoned mansion…’<.p>

*

**Cambridge, Before**

Svlad takes great care sliding his keys into his doorlock as quietly as he can, turning them and pushing the door open with his shoulder, arms full of his textbooks. It’s uncharacteristically stealthy and entirely against what Svlad really wants to do, which is along the lines of letting off some party poppers, bursting several multicoloured balloons or, really, anything loud and obnoxious to properly celebrate his first real roommate and - potentially – his first real friend. However, his roommate had looked incredibly pale that morning, so Svlad decides to be cautious and cat-like in his approach instead. To show his appealing considerate side, as it were. 

There are many layers to Svlad Cjelli. For example: Svlad Cjelli has been trained for covert operation. 

He slides like a ninja through the door, creeps like a burglar across the room. His roommate is still asleep. Svlad notices he slept as coverless as he had, although his roommate had obviously elected to sleep fully dressed, apart from his trousers and shoes. His hair is short but alluringly curly, locked into a mess with day-old gel. It’s the kind of look that Svlad would rather enjoy studying to replicate on himself, and self-consciously tucks a lock of his own overgrown fringe behind his ear.

It’s while studying his roommate that he trips over his own laces near his roommate’s bed. He recalls as he falls how his covert operation training had ended: with the total mental breakdown of a three-war-serving sergeant. 

Svlad goes down with an ‘urk!’’ and his textbooks sail through the air, colliding with the bookshelf. The occupant in the bed lurches upwards immediately.

Svlad scrambles to his feet. He swirls around, trying to give the impression that something attacked him rather than revealing the less appealing and more embarrassing fact that Svlad has never really gotten to grips with how to work his limbs.

‘Hi!’ Svlad tries cheerily, and offers a wave.

His roommate’s expression goes from terror to surprise to something close to aghast horror at such speed Svlad is surprised it doesn’t give him whiplash.

‘Oh god,’ his roommate mutters, his mouth remaining open. ‘Oh my god.’

Svlad holds out his hand, walking towards him. ‘I’m so sorry if I woke you. The floor was too... stable.’ _What am I talking about?_ ‘Um. It’s always awkward when floors do that, don’t you find? When they remain maliciously and intensely inert. You try to correct yourself for some possible movement, but they just remain boring and dormant - if there had been an earthquake just then, I assure you that I would have displayed some _pretty_ impressive footwork.’

‘Oh my god,’ his roommate says, stubbornly, like his brain is a record skipping over the “Oh My god” track. 

‘Er.’

‘I mean -’ His roommate shakes his head in disbelief. ‘I mean, just - oh my god.’ 

‘Look, I don’t mean to be judgemental - we all have our linguistic limits - but do you say anything other than “Oh my god?”'

‘I - How? How have you - it is - it is you... right?’

His roommate pulls himself out of bed, stumbling a little, his eyes locked on Svlad’s face. 

‘Uh. Y-yes, it’s - I’m - sorry, I think I’m missing something important here?’ Svlad says, trying a smile.

‘You’re - right? You’re -’

‘Oh!’ Svlad smacks his palm to his head, laughing. ‘Sorry, where are my manners - Svlad Cjelli.’

Svlad offers his hand again, but his roommate just stares, disbelievingly, at his face. His eyes are an impossibly light blue, the kind of colour that reminds Svlad of a clouding-over spring sky above dark, grey facility buildings. It’s an instant, unchallengeable truth that Svlad could get as lost in those eyes now as he did in the sky as a child. He knows it’s rude to stare, but it’s not as if his roommate is doing any differently.

‘What?’

‘Svlad Cjelli. It’s my name.’

‘No, it’s not,’ the man mutters almost unconsciously, his eyebrows knitted distrustfully together.

Svlad raises his eyebrow in retaliation. ‘Uh. Yes it is. It’s a good name. It’s my father’s name. Well, not actually my father’s name, obviously if it was my father’s name there’d be little help in me taking it from him, I’m sure he’s got to use it on letters and cheques and such - not that I’ve ever met him - but regardless of that it’s a pretty good copy, letters in the same place and everything -’

‘Stop... talking.’

‘I - oh, er -’ Svlad feels heat on his cheeks. ‘Sorry, I tend to ramble when I’m -’

‘- Nervous,’ his roommate completes, with a resigned sigh. ‘Yeah. Fuck. I know what this is. Shit.’

‘Well!’ Svlad grins. ‘Glad that’s sorted then!’ For good measure, Svlad taps his roommate several times on the shoulder, in a manner he hopes is encouraging.

The man shakes his head and moves his jaw with his hand, as if several words are skipping for attention on his tongue. Eventually, he seems to find some and extends his own hand out.

‘I’m Steve Mander.’

Svlad takes his hand firmly. Handshakes, it turns out, are not for as long as Svlad had assumed, and Steve slowly peels his fingers away after barely ten seconds. Svlad feels energised. He can’t stop smiling.

*

Todd can’t stop scowling. The smile of greeting that Reg was wearing as Todd scrambled through his office window vanishes instantly as Todd pushes him up and against a wall.

‘Er, hello?’ Reg squeaks, his head attempting to turtle itself into his collar.

‘Who are you?’ Todd shouts. He pushes his arm across Reg’s neck. Interrogation techniques. Keep them scared, ask them quick. Farah is an excellent mentor. ‘Did you do this? How do you know him? Are you CIA? Who are you working for?’

‘For heaven’s sake - !’

Todd slams a fist against the wall, shaking some books out of a nearby bookcase. Reg swallows his words.

Todd’s eyes flicker over the terror in Reg’s face for a few tense seconds. His fear seems genuine. His confusion is innocent. He’s shaking, scared. He doesn't know anything. He's telling the truth. Shit.

Todd growls and pulls himself away, rage unsatisfyingly ebbing away. 

‘Good lord, boy. Just tell me what -’

‘Dirk Gently. _Svlad Cjelli_ ,’ Todd says, letting the name hang in the air. Reg’s nose crinkles and he mouths the name to himself, entirely unfamiliar. ‘The guy you - the student who’s in the room you put me in. What do you know about him? Who is he to you?’

‘The… philosophy student?’ Reg asks, bewildered. ‘He - he was a late transfer, he’s not even in my department. I don’t know anything about him -’

‘Then why did you have his key?’ 

‘For my tutee - I told you that.’

‘Your tutee?’ 

‘Richard MacDuff - an English undergraduate. A perfectly normal, suitably unintelligent individual with a penchant for rogue computation. He’s in the room across from you.’

Todd finds himself laughing, exasperated, running a hand through his hair. More unbelievable coincidences. How many students are there at this college? What’s the probability of meeting Dirk here? That’s the probability of running into Reg’s tutee on that bridge, who just happens to live in the room opposite Dirk’s? What’s the probability of dropping out of the sky into Cambridge in the first place? Straight into the university that Dirk attends at this point in his life? Todd’s sure if he works out the probabilities and combines them together, he would receive an answer large enough to break a calculator.

Todd breathes deeply, hearing Dirk’s voice ringing in his ears, seeing his bright, certain smile. 

_Coincidence is the word we use to describe the universe being awfully nice to us, putting all the pieces in the right place at the right time._

‘Okay,’ Todd says, shaking his head free of fog. ‘Okay. I know why I’m here.’

‘You do?’ 

‘No, of course not. But this is familiar - annoyingly familiar. I just - okay.’ Todd breathes, wishing he had a tie to adjust. He can see why Dirk wears them. ‘I just have to do... whatever, I guess, and I’ll - I’ll somehow get to the end of this.’ Even to his own ears he sounds unconvinced.

‘The end of this? What do you mean?’

‘This is… a case.’ Todd says, slowly. It has to be. The routine is too familiar. Strange coincidences - the universe politely setting up its chess pieces before it began flinging pawns across the table at them. ‘It’s what we do - what I do - we’re kind of… holistic detectives. The, uh, interconnectedness of all things.’ Todd paused. ‘I’m not good at this part. Dirk usually does this part. Dammit, why am _I_ here? The universe has really screwed itself. I don’t have - I can’t -’ Todd waves his hands impotently, Reg watching him carefully. ‘Dirk gets these… hunches. He’s psychic -’ Todd lowers his voice for the forbidden word ‘- and I don’t have him here to help.’ 

*

**Seattle, Now**

Farah spends time psyching herself up outside of Dirk’s apartment door, trying to ignore the shakes in her hands. She’s being buffeted by caffeinated energy drinks: live-wire alert, but her anxiety trebled. She hasn’t slept for more than three hours straight in the past three weeks, but she knows she can’t wait any longer.

Farah lightly knocks on the door, and calls through: ‘Dirk?’

There’s no answer. She tries again, a little louder.

‘Dirk?’

Still no answer. At this point, Farah should be kicking the door down, gun drawn, but at Amanda’s insistence she’s been banned from carrying until she’s back on full form. Farah’s seen enough accidental gunshot injuries to know Amanda has a point, but Farah still feels naked and helpless without a comforting solid weight in her jacket’s holster. 

She puts on her brass knuckles instead. Remembers the identical pair she gave to Todd, and feels the cruel laughter of his death jangle in her ears.

‘Dirk!’ Farah shouts, hitting the door hard enough to cover the heartless sound in her ears. ‘Dirk, I’m going to kick this door down if you don’t -’

The door swings open inwards. Dirk’s eyes are dark with fatigue, his cheeks puffed and blotchy. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and a white undershirt, stained with tomato sauce and unidentifiable dark splashes. His hair is a flat, greasy mess, two shades darker than usual, giving extra pallor to his usual pale complexion.

‘Hullo,’ Dirk says. His eyes meet Farah’s, then dart away into the carpet between their feet. 

‘Um.’ Farah doesn’t know what to say. She’s forgotten everything she prepared earlier. ‘I -’

Dirk stands aside, eyes still on the floor, and motions for her to come in. 

The devastation in Dirk’s apartment is unremarkable for him. Takeout containers strewn over the floor. Overflowing garbage cans. One wall dedicated to a large mess of photographs and one-word Post-it notes, connected with a web of red cotton between push-pins. But there’s an extra layer of despondency today. The takeout containers aren’t neatly stacked, but spread wherever they landed. The garbage cans are spilling out, constituting a real health hazard and not just betraying the laziness of someone who can’t be bothered to go downstairs to the curb. The wall is falling apart, previously tacked photographs littering the floor where they fell.

‘Where’s Bernice?’ Farah asks, stepping over garbage, looking around for any sign of the small black cat-shark. 

Dirk shrugs and collapses on the only part of the couch not covered with trash. He reaches for a white takeout container and fiddles with the chopsticks inside. ‘Let her out the window a few days ago; haven’t seen her since. I think she’s mad at me.’

‘Mad at you?’

Dirk hums noncommittally, pulling out some noodles and sucking them into his mouth. ‘I can’t find her food underneath the, um.’ Dirk waves, indicating the ruin of his apartment. ‘Everything’.

‘I’m sure she’ll be back.’

‘If she’s smart, she won’t. She should find a nice new home. Or a nice ocean somewhere. Lots of fish, not many seals.’ Dirk makes a disgruntled face and puts the noodles back in the pile where they came from. ‘This food is awful. Why has every takeaway in Seattle suddenly become so bland? Did they have a conference and decide this? Or is there a Seattle-wide shortage of MSG or something?’

‘Dirk, I’ve been sending you messages - have you been getting them?’

‘My mobile’s dead. The charger is…’ Dirk looks around, not moving from his position on the couch. He eventually gives up and shrugs. ‘You know. _Everything_.’

‘We have a client.’

There’s a renewed, strained silence. Dirk swallows and taps his fingers on his knees. 

‘The Agency is closed,’ Dirk says, quietly. ‘Permanently.’

Farah breathes out in relief. It’s good to know. Not that it doesn’t hurt, but it’s still good to know. Farah hadn’t thought the Agency would survive Todd’s death. It’ll be a financial hit, but Farah doesn’t even care about the money. She’ll sell the office, make some of the funds back, at least enough to support herself until she finds another career to keep Dirk supported and Amanda in her pararibulitis medication.

‘Okay. That’s fine. I expected -’

‘I’m going back to England.’

Farah blinks rapidly. ‘You’re what?’

Dirk tenses his jaw and stands. ‘There’s no reason for me to stay. I don’t have a case! I don’t have a cat! I don’t have -’ Dirk’s forearms tense and folds his arm across his chest. He still hasn’t met Farah’s eyes and he’s blinking rapidly. ‘I - I want to go back to England.’

‘Why?’

‘It was easier there.’

‘You hated England!’ Farah finds herself shouting. Dirk flinches, his face strained. Farah lowers her voice. ‘Sorry, sorry. I just. I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I,’ Dirk says, his voice shaking. He’s staring at the floor, his shoulders moving in agitation. ‘I don’t understand anything anymore. But I understood where I was in England. I was alone. Friendless. It was just me, and my - my cases. I understand that. I don’t -’ Dirk frantically starts to clear his eyes of tears, his voice breaking. ‘Farah, I - I don’t understand how I can - can go _forward_ without he - him. I need to go backwards - I need - I need -’

Farah would not consider herself a tactile person, but she sweeps across the distance between them instantly and pulls Dirk into a tight squeeze. Dirk collapses forward against her shoulder. His body convulses Farah presses her face against his neck and rubs his back, hushing him quietly. 

‘You’re not alone,’ Farah whispers when Dirk’s shaking is reduced to the occasional, quiet hiccup. ‘I’m here, Dirk. Me, Amanda... we’re here for you. If you want to go back to England, that’s your choice and we’re not going to stop you. But we love you and if you want to stay in Seattle we’ll help you through this. We’re not going to leave you.’

Dirk nods against her shoulder, sniffing. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t,’ Farah says, not adding: _I’m the one who should be_.

*

**Cambridge, Before**

Undercover whilst hopelessly unprepared is not an unfamiliar situation for Todd. Usually, they have ways around that. Farah has bank accounts in almost every continent, but these are of course inaccessible to an inadvertent time traveller. 

He asks Reg for money instead, which he provides with no hesitation. A big, thick wad of bills which - even though Todd doesn’t know the exchange rate - guesses has to be close to a thousand dollars.

He spends the morning scouring Cambridge’s shopping district, buying first a large, black suitcase with wheels and then proceeding to pack it to busting with what he would guess the average exchange student would deem the basics. Clothes (including a large denim jacket, weathered in a just-about-not-offensive kind of way), bedding, a few pads of paper and a pack of cheap pens, razors and hair gel, toothbrush and toothpaste. 

Buying the latter, Todd ends up in a small pharmacy and the large green medical cross over the smiling cashier’s head gives Todd the first real stomach-drop of terror he’s had since landing after the fall. He’s only got three, maybe four doses of his pararibulitis medication in the small bottle he carries with him at all times. Pararibulitis is not a well known condition, and the medication is so strong that scripts are usually tightly controlled. 

Todd wonders if he’ll have to be re-diagnosed here - if he can be re-diagnosed without a passport or birth certificate - but decides as the cashier rings up his purchases that he’ll just have to wait and see what happens. It's been a week with no attacks so far, which is edging on the best it's ever been. Todd doesn't want to examine that too closely, afraid it might cause something to kick off.

His suitcase rumbles along the street as he walks through, trying to rack his brain for other stuff to buy and not think about the torture that accompanies an entirely unmedicated attack. A shop catches his eye, just off the main road of the high street. A music shop: the front entirely decked out with guitars, their long necks labelled like pet shop dogs. 

Todd wheels his suitcase closer. Each label has almost a paragraph of story in sentimental, loopy writing. His eye catches one in particular (“1979-81 Fender Lead II, very rare, excellent condition with original Fender case - £795”). 

Todd’s inside the shop before he can even think the phrase ‘impulse control’. A shopkeeper with long grey hair tied into a neat ponytail and an earring in his left ear catches his eye and grins.

‘What’re were you looking at? The Gretch?’

‘No - the Fender,’ Todd says, unable to take his eyes off it for even a second.

‘You American? Proper American sound out of that - USA made, Mustang-Style Fender Lead II. Excellent condition - comes with original Fender case.’

‘Can I have a go?’

‘Sure, mate. No guitar in this shop is just for looking. Would be like cutting the balls off a stallion, putting an instrument like that out to pasture.’

Todd abandons his suitcase in a corner and excitedly pulls the Fender out of its stand. Todd has never owned a guitar worth more than two hundred dollars, and his heart is thumping. 

The Fender looks well loved and a single strum pricks Todd’s ear - out of tune, but genuinely beautiful. Todd hums as he twiddles the pegs, locking the strings down to a standard tuning, as he’s done a hundred times before. He frets every note, running through scales before delving into _Master of Puppets_

_‘Hey, uh,’ Todd asks, spinning around to the cashier. ‘Do you have a tube tone amp I could carry out of here?’_

__

_

*

_

__

‘Nooooo,’ Richard says, amazed, his eyes darting over the guitar in Todd’s hands. They’re standing in the hallway between their two rooms, Richard still evidently in his sleepwear - sweatpants and a white t-shirt. His grin cuts across his face. ‘No fucking way! That is - holy shit, that’s so sweet!’

__

‘Yeah like Clapton’s -’

__

‘- The one that kicked off the Hard Rock Cafe!’ Richard whistles, impressed. ‘ _Shit_. You play right?’

__

Todd makes a face designed to impart how ridiculous the idea of him not playing is, and pushes his new amp into Richard’s doorway. Richard jumps back to let him through.

__

Richard’s room is about half the size of theirs - but still a double - the smaller space made worse by the sheer amount of crap that has already accumulated. Todd is reminded of Patrick Spring’s hidden lab, albeit slightly less steampunk: a large computer tower reaching the ceiling, flickering red and green lights. A piano keyboard sitting on a metal stand, with a full-scale mixing desk behind and a small drum kit. Cables track across the floor to the walls, some tacked out of the window and others delving into holes in the walls which look newly made.

__

‘Something tells me you’re not getting your deposit back,’ Todd mutters, putting the new guitar on the nearest bed.

__

Richard scoffs. ‘Two bloody power sockets, they gave us. Two! Their own fault I had to improvise. Anyway, I ain’t done anything a decent sparky cannae rectify in half a day. Plus, check this out -’ Richard reaches over to a chunky computer monitor and switches on the power. A lattice of six camera feeds flicker onto the screen. ‘Managed to tap into the St Cedd’s CCTV system!’

__

‘...Why?’

__

Richard shrugs. ‘See if I could. And I can. Hey, plug your amp into that power socket - no! Not that one, that one controls… yeah that one - okay, do you need a jack?’

__

_

*

_

__

_

_What is the strongest argument against the existence of objective moral facts? Does it work?_

_

__

Svlad knows these words, but not in this order. He stares at them at the head of his paper, the small green study lamp focusing on the printed ink. 

__

Svlad is fully prepared for studying - tea made, notebook out, medication taken, pens uncapped - for writing his first real essay for his first real class. _Ethics_. Svlad thinks he’ll like ethics. Moral principles which govern people’s behaviour. Svlad has experienced a lot of morally dubious behaviour, and it would be brilliant to finally understand it.

__

Svlad puts his pen to his paper -

__

_

_What is the strongest argument against the existence of objective moral facts? Does it work?_

_

__

\- and nothing happens. 

__

__

Svlad frowns. He shakes his arms out, huffs a breath, and bends over his desk again.

__

Pen to paper, and -

__

_

_What is the strongest argument against the existence of objective moral facts? Does it work?_

_

__

\- nothing. Again. Svlad sucks his lower lip into his mouth. 

__

Nothing. Svlad’s never thought of nothing before. There have always been somethings. 

__

Svlad drinks a mouthful of tea and twirls his pen in between his fingers. Tries to think of similar situations like this. Comes up with fuzzy images of twisting computer screens, restraints digging into his bruised wrists, sweat dripping around sticky ECG electrodes. He’s been asked to write essays previously, but that was before being released. Before years homeless. Sodden with rain water, trying to find a shower. Stinking and disgusting. Hating himself. Wanting to go back to a home he never had. _Wanting it all to stop_.

__

The tablets in their blister pack look inviting. Svlad impulsively reaches for them, before sense comes to him and he snaps his hand back. It’s barely been ten minutes since his last dose. He knows this more from the alarm on his digital watch than his own time-keeping (his short term memory hasn’t been first-class recently). The tablets bring with them a sense of anesthetic numbness which Svlad has quite grown to like, especially when he’s anxious.

__

Not that Svlad is actually experiencing anxiety. His heart rate is slow, his thoughts are a crystal clear lake of nothingness. The ten-minute-ago tablets are, unsurprisingly, working on him. So why does he want more?

__

‘One, two, three, four!’ 

__

The screech of an electric guitar, hand ripping down a fretboard. A handful of notes and then a crash of cymbals. Heavy, thudding blows into a bass drum, then snares and toms. The rhythm kicking up incrementally - guitar dominant, leading the drum, delves into boisterous, up-beat chords which the percussion scrambles to catch-up to.

__

Svlad whips his hands over his ears, pushes his chair out and backs into the room.

__

The music's too loud, roaring in his ears. His stomach is already pitching. His head is already banging. The music is seeping into every pore of his body, underneath his fingernails, into his mouth and nose and funnelling into his lungs is this disastrously, deadly poison.

__

_Escape._ How? The window? He could jump out the window. Or, he could run into the hallway - where the music is coming from. Try and stop it. Considering Svlad has so far shown no promise of a spontaneous ability to fly, he decides the latter option more sensible.

__

Svlad shoves the door with his shoulder and barrels into the hallway. The music is coming from the room opposite, the door slightly ajar. With the music comes the swirl of ideas, the painful painful pull of a hunch, crashing into his mind, taking over his thoughts, ripping apart the delicate fabric of nothing that’s protecting him with sound, sound, sound -

__

Svlad pushes the door open with his elbows, screaming: ‘Stop it! Stop it!’

__

Instantly, the music screeches to a halt. The swarm dies. Svlad’s breath is frenzied in his chest, insects in his lungs. The panic is still there, in the back of his mind, but the thoughts are not coming to him. 

__

Blank. Empty. Numb.

__

‘Jesus, man! What’s your problem?’

__

Svlad opens his eyes - not sure when he closed them - and pulls his hands away from his ears.

__

His roommate - Steve - is staring at him in alarm, clutching the neck of an electric guitar which is strapped across him. In the corner, by a large electronic-strewn desk with several tempting knobs and switches, is a person whom Svlad recognises from his first day at St Cedd's, the blonde haired boy trying to get his keyboard through the door. In complete defiance to the dimensions of the room, a full drum kit has been squeezed inside, and someone else – someone completely unknown to Svlad – with dark features, intense brow and partless swept back hair is sat behind it.

__

‘Don’t just bust in here, you dickhole,’ the person Svlad recognises shouts at him. ‘Ever heard of knocking?’

__

Svlad’s never been called a dickhole before and it momentarily perplexes him before he remembers the overwhelming pain of the music and anger of being so unexpectedly exposed to it blisters up his shoulders.

__

‘You were loud!’ Svlad snaps. ‘Unnecessarily so! So, even if I were to knock, you would have never been able to hear my request for entry over this - this caterwauling miasma of adolescent musical aggression!’

__

Svlad’s not experienced such a thundering silence before. It’s almost as if time has frozen in second hand embarrassment. Eventually, nervous laughter from dark haired boy behind the drum kit slices through.

__

‘Hey - Svlad, calm down -’ Steve unwraps himself from his guitar and lays it carefully on one of the beds. ‘Sorry, man - I didn’t know you were back - I would have come over and invited you -’

__

‘Invited me? Why the hell would I want to listen to that - that absolute garbage,’ Svlad shakes his head. ‘If you start playing again, I’ll - I’ll report you to the hall rep! Then you’ll be sorry!’

__

Both the men that Svlad can’t name start laughing uproariously. Svlad realises he’s being made fun of. It stings in a very familiar way, humiliation scorching the back of his neck. Svlad feels his eyes start to burn.

__

Svlad turns on his heels and storms out the door and across the landing, back into his room.

__

He sits down furiously on his bed, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands.

__

He’s messed up. Made an absolute fucking idiot of himself. His entire body feels tense and hot. he wishes he could just take his medication, _make it all go away_ -

__

‘Hey - hey Svlad?’ Svlad hadn’t even noticed that Steve had followed him in. He wipes the worst of the tears away from his face, but he knows he must look terrible - blotchy and disgusting. Weak. Steve looks perfect, of course. Slight redness on his cheekbones. Probably embarrassed that he has such an abnormal roommate. He had looked so natural holding that guitar. He should have roomed with next door. They’re probably bound to be friends - best friends. ‘What’s going on? I don’t understand -’

__

‘Leave me alone!’ Svlad winces as his voice cracks. ‘Go - go be with -’ Svlad waves a hand in the direction of the door.

__

Steve firmly does not do that. He crosses the room and sits down on the bed next to Svlad. Svlad pushes himself away, trying to widen the distance. His hands tense on his bare bed. His heart is insistent that it should break through his ribcage. His lungs are stating matter-of-factly that they would prefer to never work, again. 

__

His brain is away with the faeries, spinning on a loop of barking army orders and spinning television screens and photos and symbols and _if you tell us what’s on the card we won’t deploy the shock -_

__

‘Are you having a panic attack?’

__

Svlad forces his clawed fingers to relax. He bends over himself, groaning. His chest really hurts.

__

‘What’s a panic attack?’ he whispers, clutching his stomach. He’s going to be sick. He’s going to be sick, and then he’s going to have a stroke and die on the floor of the toilet.

__

‘It’s when everything feels crazy overwhelming. You think you can’t breathe. And it’s just. It’s weird but you’re really frightened all of a sudden.’

__

_What?_ Svlad feels like something’s slotted into place. It’s so surprising that he actually stops crying and looks up at Steve properly through his sweat-matted fringe.

__

‘I’m… people have these?’

__

Steve smiles sympathetically. ‘Yeah. Actually one of my friends, she gets them all the time - we - uh, anyway, yeah. Yeah, they’re normal. You're going to be okay. Do you. Do you need anything?’

__

_My medication_ , Svlad thinks, instinctively, and glances at his watch which - of course - tells him he still has another three hours, forty-five minutes. What Svlad actually wants to do is force himself to throw up, take another set of pills and then fall asleep, but he doesn’t think that’s what Steve wants him to say.

__

‘How does your friend deal with them?’ Svlad asks instead.

__

‘Um. She usually goes and punches the shit out of her training bag.’

__

Svlad burbles a laugh. He can’t imagine anything he wants to do less than _fight_ something. He wants to curl up in a ball and die, not participate in boxing warm-ups. ‘That doesn’t sound too... appealing.’

__

‘I’ve got this… other friend,’ Steve darts his eyes away from Svlad for a moment. ‘When he’s feeling out of it, he usually eats an extra-large pizza, drinks a sixteen ounce soda and plays with the kitten.’

__

‘Kitten?’

__

‘Yeah - little black one. She’s, uh. She’s a bit… violent. But if you dump catnip on the bed, she'll just go to town on it.’

__

‘If I - If I do something which, to the untrained eye, may seem grievously immature, would you mind?’

__

Steve looks confused but holds his hands up in surrender. ‘You go ahead, man.’

__

Svlad reaches over the bed to the pull-out drawer and grasps the handle. It squeaks on its casters as he pulls it, revealing a pile of Svlad’s clean underwear. 

__

He sticks his hand underneath and tugs out the pile of black, artificial fur that has - as long as Svlad can remember anyway - been called Bernice, and been the only thing which calms him. Steve’s other friend must have similar comfort requirements, although Svlad is a little jealous he managed to have an actual real-life cat. He’s tried to make friends with those he encountered when homeless, but they usually left when the food ran out.

__

Svlad holds Bernice carefully in one hand and strokes her fur in the other. The effect is instant: calming and soothing. Everything he expects from this routine. Her fur is matted in places and Svlad’s fingers separate the bunches of fine synthetic fibre unconsciously.

__

‘Is that a toy?’ 

__

The question isn’t accusing - not like the similar from his psychologists, advising that such an attachment could be detrimental to his development. A few times, they had taken her. Svlad refused to eat in response. The game once went on for four days, at which point Svlad’s stomach was so painful it hurt to even talk but he refused even a mouthful until she was back in their room, in his arms. She was the only thing Svlad had since leaving Black Wing, and every night she’s been with him. He’s unable to remember a time without her by his side.

__

‘Sh- It makes me feel calmer,’ Svlad says, trying not to seem embarrassed. ‘I don’t know why. She always has. It. I mean.’

__

‘Hey, that’s cool.’ Steve seems so nonplussed, so open and easy, that Svlad would be sure he was putting it on if it wasn’t for the honesty in his face. ‘I play my guitar to calm down.’

__

Svlad’s jaw clenches. The agony of before is now a dull ache in his memory, but the fear of it coming back is still far too vibrant.

__

‘I hate music,’ Svlad mutters.

__

‘...What?’ Steve sounds astounded.

__

‘I hate it. I can’t stand listening to it. It brings me out in shakes and makes me throw up. It makes me think -’ Svlad stops himself, shuddering. He relaxes his fingers which have clawed themselves into Bernice’s soft body. Starts stroking her again. ‘It didn’t used to be this way, but it is now, so I believe the only sensible course of action is to avoid music.’

__

‘Avoid… music?’

__

‘All music. From elevator muzac to orchestral arias. Everything.’

__

Steve remains silent for a good while before replying: ‘Okay, then. No music.’

__


	4. The Way Forward

**Seattle, Now**

Life somehow manages to carry on, much to Farah’s incredulity. The sun still rises, birds still sing, morning runs still feel good. There’s still garbage to throw out, showers to take and clothes to wear. But there is a difference now. A vague difference, which somehow colours every activity, like a filter on a camera.

Farah locks her front door in the same way she did _that day,_ goes to the office taking the same route she did _that_ day and arrives at the office almost expecting the front door to be jammed open as it was that day.

It isn’t, of course.

Farah flits around, grabbing the last of the clientèle files and feeding them into the large portable shredder. Dirk had once tried to feed sliced cheese into the shredder in pursuit of some weird shredded food craving. Todd had laughed so hard it almost brought on a pararibulitis attack when Dirk realised he had forgotten to empty the shredder bottom and proceeded to spend three hours laboriously trying to separate gooey cheese from paper shards.

She goes to the wall and collects the post-it notes and photographs on the ground where they had been displayed not even a month earlier, the connection board for their last case. Dirk had - on purpose - stuck them just too high for Todd to reach, and Todd had retaliated by swapping all the connecting pins around until all of Dirk’s original connections were lost to try and piss him off. Dirk had come in the next day, looked at the board and - instead of being angry - hopped around in excitement, telling Todd that the new connections were the right ones. The pure conflict on Todd’s face - having both solved the case but not successfully annoyed Dirk - was not an expression Farah was going to forget, nor the sound of protest when Dirk picked Todd up around the stomach and spun him around in ecstatic joy.

Coloured. _Everything_. Stories, screaming from unwashed coffee mugs. The photographs in her hands, evidence for a previous case, she remembers when she took them, in the back of that van with Todd beside her, whispering filthy jokes trying make her giggle and she was so angry that he wouldn’t pay attention to the mission -

Her hands are shaking. Her eyes are wet.

‘Stupid. Stupid, girl. Useless girl - nothing you can change. Ha. _Time machine_. Hole in the floor - hole - hole in my head -’

‘Farah?’

Farah spins. Amanda. Swamped in her thick black leather jacket, hair thick and wild, fringe pawing at her eyebrows, standing in the doorway.

‘What are you doing?’

Farah wipes her eyes. Sniffs. Waves, irritated, as if the aircon is making her nose run and eyes water. 

‘Clearing up. I’ve booked the realtors in for this afternoon and I completely forgot about all this confidential client information we just have _hanging around the office_ -’ Farah shakes her head at herself. ‘This place is a mess, always has been. We had a locked filing cabinet, but Dirk ate the key.’

‘Dirk _ate_ the key?’

‘It was a whole… thing. Magnets. Whether you could use them to move objects inside a body. A case thing. Todd -’ Farah stops herself. Amanda blinks at her, eyes wide and open. Expecting. ‘Todd - he said - he wanted to test… it doesn’t matter.’

Amanda is holding herself, rubbing her arms through her jacket. She’s been in the office before, but she’s looking around as if every surface is new to her. Her eyes settle on Todd’s desk and even though Farah is across the room and can’t see it, Farah knows she’s staring at the framed photo of young Amanda and Todd during one of their adolescent garage jam sessions.

‘I was going to pack everything up. Keep it at mine. Because you’re on the road so often - of course - but it’s yours, of _course_ it’s yours - you - you can take -’

‘I had a dream,’ Amanda murmurs. Farah goes silent. She’s learned from experience to be quiet when Amanda talks about her dreams or her thoughts. ‘I had a dream he wasn’t dead -’

‘Oh, Amanda,’ Farah sighs. ‘I -’

‘- so now I don’t think he is.’

Farah closes her mouth slowly. Amanda looks at Farah seriously, but cautiously. Testing her with the new information. Farah rubs two fingers against her forehead. Denial? Depression? Or maybe, just maybe - 

No. No, she can’t. Farah can’t let herself believe - not even for one second -

‘Amanda -’ Farah begins, softly.

Amanda’s jaw tightens. ‘Don’t,’ she snaps.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t dismiss this. He could be - they never found _anything_. Isn’t that weird to you? That they could search for weeks, day and night, and not even find - like - a shoe? Or a goddamn scrap of fabric? Of all the weird shit you lot have been through - that we’ve been through -’ Amanda gestures between them both - ‘and you can’t think that something other than the obvious happened here?’

‘Or maybe it is the obvious?’ Farah says, her voice rising. The flirtation with the option of insanity - to forget reason and logic, to make pain go away - is so tempting it hurts to consider. ‘How many people have we known - loved - who have died? Who fought with us, and just got - just got ripped out of our lives because that’s just what death is? It’s random and - and stupid and -’

‘Not Todd,’ Amanda shakes her head, defiantly. ‘Not Todd. He wouldn’t leave me - he just wouldn’t. And I won’t believe - I wouldn’t believe even if god came down and told me he was dead, I wouldn’t believe -’

‘Of course!’

Back at the door: Dirk. Standing, characteristic brightness in his face. Clean shaven. Washed. Clothed in a pressed shirt, wearing his bright blue jacket and a tie with tiny gold feathers. He’s holding a large brown suitcase with leather straps in both hands. 

He’s ready to leave. Farah’s stomach hardens.

‘What?’ Amanda snaps.

‘God! Well, a god. I know one! I can call - I can call in a favour - !’ Dirk’s eyes skate around the room, unseeing. His mouth suddenly widens into an excited, jubilant grin. ‘Yes! Yes - of course - we should ask him,’ Dirk nods rapidly, each time increasing in speed. ‘Yes. Yes, I _know_ this is the right course of action. I need to go to England, Farah,’ Dirk catches himself, mid-twirl to the door. ‘No - we. We need to go to England. Of course! Duh! How could I be so stupid.’

Farah allows herself a second of eye twitching. ‘We’re going to find a - a god? In England?’

‘No, of course not,’ Dirk sighs, rolling his eyes. ‘That’s just where the train station is which contains the interdimensional portal which will take us to Valhalla. Valhalla, Farah?’ Dirk repeats, shaking the word. ‘The actual, factual full-on _sexy_ afterlife? I can take us there! I’ll convince them,’ Dirk sets his jaw, eyes shining. ‘- I’ll convince them, somehow. And I’ll bring him back!’ Dirk bleats. He suddenly bounces towards Amanda, he clasps her hands, brings them to his face. He kisses her knuckles, grinning madly. ‘We don’t need a funeral for your brother, Amanda! We need a rescue mission!’

*

**Cambridge, Before**

For Todd, the days pass surprisingly quickly. Every morning he scales the ivy into Reg’s office - the door still pointing upwards into the sky, a minor inconvenience to Reg who barely leaves his chair anyway - just to be told that the time machine still isn’t fixed and to come back tomorrow. It always seems like there’s a small task for Todd to do whilst he’s there - usually to help find whatever item Reg has somehow lost in his dishevelled office that morning. His wire-rimmed glasses, his gold-plated ink pen, his light-blue-and-electric-green macaw.

Todd usually escapes mid-morning, sliding down the ivy and landing heavily into a supremely resilient azalea bush. Lying in the bush is usually when the creeping awareness of uncountable time begins to set in. Staring into the frosty blue sky, hands usually bloody with parrot-break scratches, Todd becomes overwhelmingly attuned to just how dull being trapped in this part of the case is. Waiting. For the case to begin. For the next day to begin. The lengthy, murky breakfast of his ego. Boredom will be the enemy, at least until Todd eventually learns what the enemy really is - what the case will be, who (or what) will be their adversary. Todd knows something is bound to happen. He just doesn’t know when. Or where. Or anything, if he’s truly being honest with himself. 

Time passes. Todd spends most of the days (after the morning panic wears off) twiddling with his guitar, breaking in the strings and composing whilst Svlad is at lectures. Richard is friendly enough, in the normal, human, non-psychotic way which Todd hadn’t realised he missed. People (normal people) aren’t usually around him anymore. Todd is quickly introduced to Richard’s roommate, John Hobson, an uninteresting mathematics undergraduate who doesn’t hold a candle to Amanda as a drummer, but is slightly preferable to Richard’s vast selection of synth drum tracks.

Time passes. It becomes the evenings, which flip between crushingly boring and drunkenly bland with no middle ground. He still hasn't experienced a single pararibulitis attack since landing in Cambridge and, although he doesn't know why, Todd takes it as the universe giving him a brief reprieve and doesn't want to waste a single moment of walking around without the shadow of immanent pain hovering over his head. If Richard and John aren’t facing imminent deadlines, the three of them waste their evenings in the student bar or Shore’s, criticising amateur bands. If they’re not willing, then Todd is left alone - usually trekking the twisting streets of Cambridge, pleading with the universe to just _get on with it already_ \- desperate to break the monotony.

At all times, Todd avoids his room. If anyone was to ask him, Todd would say that it’s nothing to do with Svlad, but as no one ever does he doesn’t have to lie: it’s _everything_ to do with Svlad. 

It’s too eerie, for a start: an eeriness which Todd isn’t equipped to deal with. Svlad might look like Dirk, but acts nothing like him. He’s sullen. Withdrawn. Constantly ducking his head and shutting himself away in their bathroom. He hasn’t set anything on fire, broken into their dorm via the window or had the decency to drag Todd half-way across the country in pursuit of a hunch which turns out to be a strong craving for french fries. 

He’s irritating, and not in the in-your-face way Todd has now been Stockholm-Syndromed into believing is acceptable behaviour. He's irritating in a grating way. He shrugs in reply to questions. Snaps when Todd comes in late, complaining about being disturbed. Todd isn’t a good enough person to overlook it, which makes him feel even worse, and soon Svlad is associated with that feeling. Someone to avoid.

And even if Svlad wasn’t being a dick, Todd probably still wouldn’t like him. Because Todd is an asshole. A lonely asshole, who wants to be home, and Svlad’s presence - his comparison to Dirk - feels like the universe is mocking him.

On the anniversary of one month trapped in the past, Todd - fully dressed - is lying on his bed, trying to summon up the energy to get out and climb the ivy again. Svlad is in the bathroom, first one up, as always, and the heavy sound of running water is helpfully distracting. Being an early riser is entirely _unlike_ Dirk, and Todd doesn’t know what that means. The Dirk that Todd knows is capable of sleeping through hurricanes, earthquakes and wildebeest migrations - once all in the same night - and still considers being woken up before midday as ‘undignified torture’. Svlad always leaves his bed at six am like an eager-to-rise cadet.

The water shuts off and soon after Svlad comes back into the room, his long-ish hair neatly coiffed behind his ears. He’s wearing a button-down shirt with washed out blue jeans, no tie. Todd wonders when the obsessive tie-wearing will enter Svlad’s aesthetic arsenal, and whether it will accompany pulling out the giant rod that’s stuck up his ass.

‘Classes?’ Todd asks, a nice safe subject for them both, as his pulls himself up.

‘Tutorial, two lectures, quick lunch then off to the library to work on my prep -’ Svlad replies, walking around their room and stuffing notepads and pens into his backpack. ‘Then a seminar and my last lecture. I think that’s everything.’

Todd was initially shocked at the weight of Svlad’s course-load, but from what he’s gathered from Richard and John it’s par for the course at Cambridge. If Todd had gone here, he would have taken one look at the itinerary and bolted.

‘You?’

‘Uh, just… going over some thesis proposals.’ Todd’s prepared a thin but easily verifiable background of being a potential PhD student, taking the year at St. Cedd’s to work on research for Reg. Reg Chronotis’ department is as ambiguous as the man himself, so Todd can be as vague as he likes about the extent of his ‘research’ without much inquisition. ‘How’s the essay going?’

Svlad doesn’t stop trying to cram another textbook into his already over-packed bag, but does tilt his head. The air in the room seems to shift and when he turns to face Todd, his smile is painted on.

‘Oh, brilliantly. Perfect. Just a few more sentences, just to wrap everything up, and yes. Yes, then it will be -’

‘Svlad?’

Svlad gives Todd a miserable smile. ‘Well, I still haven’t quite managed to write… anything.’

‘Anything?’ Todd asks, disbelieving. For the past four nights, Svlad has done nothing but sit in their room and drink tea, apparently working on his essay. Last night, he insisted that Todd left him alone all evening (which Todd was planning on doing anyway), and when Todd came back at two in the morning, Svlad was slumped forward on his desk, drooling over his books.

‘There’s no need to snap!’ Svlad, himself, snaps. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

Todd bites his tongue. This is the worst aspect of Svlad’s personality - an exhaustive inability to ask for help - and it enrages Todd like nothing else.

Svlad lets out a shaky breath and dumps his bag on the desk, where it clatters against two unwashed mugs.

‘I might skip the tutorial,’ Svlad mumbles. He grabs his large leather trench coat from its hook on the back of their door. It was probably once black, but it’s so worn that the cracked leather appears grey. Todd hates it, hates how dull it is, doesn’t understand what makes Svlad wear it more than any other item in his wardrobe. ‘What do you usually do in the morning? Maybe I could do that.’

‘Uh. Usually hit up the refectory. For coffee. Breakfast.’

Svlad nods, neither approving or disapproving, and motions for Todd to lead them whilst slipping on his coat. The temptation to laugh and passive-aggressively flip Svlad the bird is tantalizing. But this is the closest thing to an olive branch that Todd’s received in the past month. He’ll take it.

They walk through the corridor, down the spiral staircase, through the large stone arch and into the grassy yard of North Court almost totally in silence. It’s another startling difference between Dirk and Svlad: Dirk, who fills any silence with uncontrollable bullshit, and Svlad, who just frowns, wordlessly staring at the ground at his feet.

The refectory is a short walk out of North Court and into the long, green stretch of the campus which sidles up against the river Cam. The walkway is tan flagstone, immaculately maintained, and snakes alongside the dull, concrete laboratories and lecture halls which been dumped there back in the seventies, when people thought grey really made science pop. Opposite is the river, and the selection of large wooden outhouses where Todd’s been told they store the punting equipment.

‘Have you been on the river yet?’ Todd asks Svlad.

‘No,’ Svlad snaps, far too fast. ‘You?’

‘Nah.’

‘Oh.’

With conversation so thrilling, it seems to take double the time to get to the refectory, which is on the lower floor of one of the older lecture buildings. The refectory is a converted two-level library, with coffee machines and a large glass-metal cover for hot food stuck on one side. Large armchairs stuck in twos and threes sit fatly around slightly-too-high tables, meaning that slumping down on one makes eating an awkward shuffle of elbows. There’s a nice waft of chatter, which sweetens the far more potent stink of yesterday’s heat-lamp hot dogs and over-salted fries.

At the usual three-seat table beside a large bay window facing the river, Richard is perched on a chair arm, chatting animatedly to John who is barely visible where he’s slid down. Todd whistles at them, pinched-fingered. 

Richard looks up immediately, then waves. His expression morphs into unimpressed tightness when he spots Todd isn’t alone. 

“The fuck?” Richard mouths angrily to Todd, motioning at Svlad who has peeled off towards the coffee counter. Then, once Todd is in earshot: ‘The _actual_ fuck? Why’re you with the vampire?’

‘Don’t call him that,’ Todd mutters.

‘Uh, sorry, is only seen at night,’ Richard begins, picking out one of his fingers. ‘Wears a stupid leather coat,’ he picks another finger, ‘and is _literally from Transylvania_. It’d be an idiotic waste of the opportunity not to call him a vampire.’

‘He’s out in the daytime now,’ John comments, then takes a long drink from his coffee.

‘Yeah, an’ he’s probably got Factor 50 on to stop him from exploding in the sun. Seriously - Steve - _what the fuck?_ ’

Todd finds himself agreeing with Richard, but his loyalty to Dirk - if not Svlad - keeps him from suggesting they ditch him.

Svlad comes back with a cup for himself, a little cardboard tag sticking out of the plastic lid to indicate tea. Todd moves to let Svlad get in on a chair, but Svlad keeps standing, uncomfortably just slightly to the side of their group. 

John and Richard exchange a smirk which makes Todd grit his teeth.

‘Pub tonight?’ Richard asks, turning as if to physically separate Svlad from their conversation.

John shakes his head. ‘Got a whole booklet of questions due tomorrow. Logic. Fucking formalism. Christ, give me mechanics any day. I can’t hack this philosophy bullcrap.’

‘ _Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits_ -’ Richard recites, airy.

’Bit pompous for the Scotsman reading English-fucking-Literature -’ 

‘Eh, it’s mostly Irish first year. Sullivan’s got a hard on for Joyce. My Gaelic cousins. My brothers in imperial arms -’

‘You’re studying Philosophy, aren’t you? Svlad?’ Todd interrupts quickly before Richard can go full _Braveheart_.

All heads twist in Svlad’s direction. Svlad swallows, a mouse in the vicinity of cats. 

‘Yes,’ Svlad says, and nothing more.

 _Damn it._ Todd nibbles at the inside of his lower lip. ‘Agree with what Richard said? Sublime or trivial? What’s philosophy for?’ Todd’s baiting him, trying to get a rise - anything but the silence he’s had to suffer through for the past month.

The quiet Svlad offers is tense. A small crease appears in his brow and his eyes flicker on the table, his mouth hovering over his tea. Todd’s heart leaps as he recognises Dirk in the expression - solving something, connecting two clues together - but it flickers and dies almost as soon as Todd recognises it.

‘Nothing,’ Svlad mutters.

‘Come again?’ Richard asks, teasingly.

‘Nothing. The fundamental perception of nothing. What is “nothing”? The concept of zero didn’t exist until the fifth century. Before that, we just cared about getting corn to consider what the notion of having _no corn_ might signify. Or rice, or wheat, or whatever the ancient population of the pre-Columbian Americas ate. Zero is the most abundant philosophical deception in society. And - if you don’t have zero - mathematics dies on its arse. So, nothing. That’s what philosophy is for. It gives you nothing, it brings you that.’

Todd could have stood and fucking clapped. Finally, something which is at least a shade of his best friend. Todd’s grinning so hard, looking at Richard’s stunned face proudly. This is _his_ friend. This is who Dirk Gently is. 

Svlad’s cheekbones are slightly flushed. Excited, maybe. At least interested in something. Finally.

John shifts forward, smirking challengingly. ‘So, yeah, okay - you did that and thanks and such. But philosophy now, when we’ve got more on our plates than just being naked Greeks chasing slave boys and thinking about shit twenty-four seven - technology, transport, the internet - you’re gonna say _studying_ why one plus one equals two rather than trying to determine something which actually might benefit society - NP equals P, for example - is worth doing?’

Svlad shakes his head animatedly. ‘You are entirely missing the point here - this - this artificial division of labour into academic subjects is something which entirely arbitrary! Humans have chosen to group explosions into the Natural Sciences, poetry into English Literature and toilet maintenance into - well, toilet maintenance - but that’s just historic development! A reactionary action to kings and presidents or sultans who feel that _one_ particular book or theory or god is worth studying above all else. Who's to say that getting into the absolute, minute detail of why one plus one equals, as you say, two won’t reveal something which makes Kurt Godel eat his metaphorical hat? Everything is related to everything!’ Svlad is smiling now, really grinning. ‘You could almost say that everything is co -’

Svlad’s watch erupts into a frenzy of noise. The spirit in his face collapses and Svlad grabs his wrist. 

He looks at Todd with such open terror that Todd feels it in his own stomach and in the same movement swings around and breaks into a run. 

‘Svlad?’ Todd calls after him. 

Across the room already, Svlad rushes through the open doorway and collides with a young woman coming through in the opposite direction. Svlad’s tea is crushed between them and splatters in a mess of cardboard cup and hot brown liquid. The woman yelps in pain as it colours her white shirt. 

Svlad doesn’t give her a second glance, shoving his way past her and leaping into another gangly sprint.

‘Hey! Hey, you bastard!’ the woman shouts after him, pulling her soaking shirt away from her skin.

Richard scrambles off the chair, grabbing a pile of paper napkins off their table as he does. Todd follows, leaving John bent over with laughter in his seat.

‘Sorry about him,’ Richard says when he reaches the woman, pushing the napkins into her hands.

‘What the hell is his problem?’ she asks, dabbing at her shirt.

‘He’s an arsehole. I’ll kill him for you.’ 

The woman squints oddly at Richard. ‘Bit of an overreaction, but I appreciate the sentiment.’ She tries to blot the worst of the tea out of her shirt but groans, exasperatedly. ‘Shit - I have a tutorial in ten minutes. I can’t be late.’

Richard desperately darts his eyes around the refectory until evidently something clicks in his mind and he starts to unzip and shuffle out of his large, grey _Led Zeppelin_ sweatshirt.

‘Here,’ Richard says, shoving it into her bewildered hands. ‘It’s clean. Well, clean enough, I’ve no’ puked on it or anything. Just usual, you know, wear an’ tear.’

‘Thanks?’ the woman says, her mouth pulling into a reluctant smile. ‘I’ll have to - what’s your name? So I can tell the police to look for, after you kill your friend.’

‘He’s no’ my friend. I’m Richard.’

‘I’m Susan. Susan Way.’

*

_No no no no no no._

Svlad’s feet slam on the stairs as he pushes himself up and towards his room. _Door, tablets, swallow._ There is nothing more important in his mind. But no - no that isn’t true - because there are so many other important things in his mind. 

_\- that door is silver fish are silver are fish silver because of the water what noise do fish make do they like the sound could i call to a fish and what would i be saying are there lots of things to say to fish would they like to know why they are silver -_

He’s being swallowed by everything. Everything - the doors, the floor, the wallpaper - has a colour which relates to a flavour, to a time, to a feeling, to a behaviour, to a song, to a thought. Overwhelmed with ideas, with thoughts, an explosion of everything, everything everything.

_Door, tablets, swallow. Door, tablets, swallow._

Svlad bursts through his door and launches himself to the bathroom. He grabs the door of the bathroom cabinet and yanks it open. 

The movement seems to happen seventy times, one just a microsecond after the other, as if seventy Svlad Cjellis are doing this slightly out of sync, leaving a mirrored vapour trail. The silver of the mirror. The squeak of the cupboard. _Again and again and again and again_ they slap his senses. 

Sickness crawls over him, inside him, making a nest in his brain, his heart, his self.

_Tablets._

Svlad grabs at the ceramic cup and dumps their toothbrushes into the sink, pushing it under the tap. Opening the faucet causes another explosion of noise, colour and _thought_ -

_\- water why water water is all connected it connects the land it makes everything together fish live in it they sink and swim and roll and love and, and, and, and, and -_

_Svlad grabs his pill box and empties its contents into his shaking hand before clapping it over his mouth and lifting water to his lips._

__

He swallows everything and it feels like swallowing everything, the entire bathroom, bedroom, college, country, continent, world being dragged with the water down his throat. 

__

Knees collapse. Head hurts. Floor. Don’t throw up.

__

_Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._

__

_

*

_

__

Todd slams into their dorm and finds Svlad unconscious on the bathroom floor, curled in on himself, his face streaked with dried tears and his face sandstone pale. 

__

He grabs Svlad’s arms. His skin is warm, feverish. He finds his pulse with two fingers. Strong and calm. Thank god.

__

Todd sinks out his breath. Overwhelming terror abates, leaving a fear much less certain. This isn’t the first time Todd has seen Dirk like this - passed out, injured - but it doesn’t get any easier. 

__

He brushes Svlad’s fringe from his face, and wipes his thumbs under his eyes. Svlad’s face is relaxed in sleep.

__

Very carefully, Todd shifts Svlad into his lap and then into his arms. Although Svlad is a head taller than Todd, he’s scrawny and thin underneath his baggy clothes, and Todd doesn’t find it too difficult to lift him. Todd wonders if that’s why Svlad is perpetually in his leather jacket - to give himself some of the bulk he’s missing. 

__

Todd carries Svlad to his bed, and pulls the covers over him. 

__

He watches Svlad rest, seated on his own bed. Svlad sleeps solidly for almost an hour, not moving once, his palms open and slightly curled. 

__

Todd thinks. Thinks over his relationship, thinks over who he’s come to know Dirk as and who Svlad is showing himself to be. His friendship with Dirk was forged in fire - in the blood of several dead men, deceit and pain - and Todd would do it all again, a million times, as long as it ended the same way - with them together. 

__

Todd misses Dirk so much his chest cramps. He misses the smell of him, the certainty in his smile, but most of all his unending, limitless trust and belief in the interconnectedness of all things. There is something beautiful in Dirk’s belief - however strange and akin to madness it sometimes appears - and being exposed to it has filled Todd’s world with a brilliant, achingly beautiful light.

__

He wants Svlad to know it.

__

Svlad eventually stirs himself awake at about midday, his blue eyes dazedly blinking, fixing themselves on Todd.

__

‘Hey,’ Todd says.

__

‘Hi,’ Svlad croaks. He rubs his eyes. ‘What happened?’

__

‘You passed out. Did you have a panic attack?’

__

Svlad expression closes and then opens. ‘No. No I was – late.’

__

‘Late?’

__

‘With my dose. My medication. I have to take it regularly or things -’ Svlad cuts himself off with a deep breath. ‘Things happen to me.’

__

Todd controls his response. ‘Things?’

__

‘I see things. Or rather, I think… things,’ Svlad says, slowly, staring intently if he’s testing Todd’s reaction. ‘I can see - I can - it’s hard to explain. But something happens to me. Without them. The tablets.’

__

Todd has seen packets of pills around, little blister packets of unmarked blue-white things, and had never given them much thought. Growing up in a family of hereditary illness has obviously made Todd blind to what ‘normal’ levels of pharmaceuticals were. It looks like Svlad has been taking medication, to... what? To stop thinking - 

__

Oh, fuck. It all makes sudden, devastating sense. Svlad’s connection with the universe - what Black Wing locked down as clairvoyance, what Dirk himself never desired to name - the tablets are _repressing it_.

__

‘Why the fuck are you taking them?’ Todd finds himself shouting.

__

Svlad flinches as if he’s been slapped. ‘I – What?’

__

Todd’s hands are shaking with anger. ‘They’re stopping you - I mean - why - what’s wrong with… the things that happen to you? Why are you stopping it?’

__

Svlad looks at him coldly. ‘What happens to me is wrong. It’s unnatural and - and stopping it is the only way I can lead a normal life. It’s the only way I can stay in Cambridge and I -’ Svlad pulls himself off the sentence but it’s too late, it’s too obvious now. Todd’s blood is hot under his skin. ‘- I need to stay on them. I can’t go back to that. You have no idea what it’s like. I see horrible, horrible things - I don’t have anywhere, I don’t have _anything_.’

__

Todd knows, probably only second to Dirk, _exactly_ what it’s like, and frustration breaks like a tide inside him as he fights the urge to shout it into Svlad’s face. Dirk’s ability is not only his livelihood - it’s his mission and his entire self. He devoted his life to the belief in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. He would be nothing without it.

__

‘Just now - when you were talking about philosophy,’ Todd begins, drumming the shake from his voice. ‘Was that - that was your medication was wearing off, wasn’t it? That’s why you were speaking like that.’ Svlad nods, wrapping his arms around himself. ‘And - and how did that feel?’

__

Svlad looks at the ceiling. ‘Good,’ he says, barely above a whisper. ‘It’s why I wanted to come here - to Cambridge. To be able to think like that.’

__

‘But you can’t, when you’re on your pills?’

__

‘It’s not that _simple_ ,’ Svlad hisses, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘I can be like that, but it’s overwhelming. I’m lost into this - this _ocean_ of water. I can’t control the tide, I can’t fight against it. It’s… god, it’s sensational,’ Svlad sounds breathless, ‘but unconstrained. I get lost. I get -’ Svlad’s voice shakes. ‘It’s better if I don’t have it. If I’m just…’

__

‘This?’ Todd says, harsher than he intended.

__

Svlad puts his hands over his eyes and laughs, miserably. ‘You know, I thought we were going to be friends. Then I insulted your music, because it scared me. And I can’t do my essays, because I can barely think through the fog these tablets put my brain in. I have everything I wanted but I can’t do anything with it because I’m too pathetic like this.’

__

‘Svlad, I am your friend.’ Svlad lifts his hands off his face and looks at Todd, a mirror of the complete disbelief Dirk had on his face that day outside the hospital. ‘I’ll always be your friend. I want you to be happy. Whatever way you want to do that. I’ll be here. I promise.’

__

‘Why?’ Svlad says, scrambling to a seated position. ‘Why - why would you -? I can’t help you - I don’t even like your music - I’ve been... _horrible_.’ Svlad looks disgusted with himself. ‘I can’t - I can’t do -’

__

‘You don’t have to,’ Todd interrupts. He leans forward, grabs Svlad’s hands, holds them inside his. Svlad’s cheekbones flush. _Fuck_. How long has it been since someone touched him? ‘I just have the feeling you’re a really good person. I have the feeling that you really, really deserve a friend.’

__


	5. The Movements of Gods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, certain pieces of language in this are translated through hover-over text.

**London, Now**

Like many rail stations, travellers only come to St. Pancras to leave it, and the building appears extremely pissed off about that. The station is an unfriendly stretched and cavernous place, glass-fronted shops angrily bouncing artificial orange light in angles. There are little places to sit - heaven forfend someone may want to spend _time_ there - and food is restricted to standing room only coffee bars and sandwich shops, fresh suited commuters challenged to one-handedly stuff ham croissants into their faces, clutch hot coffee in the other all whilst conducting pan-European trade deals through the smartphones wedged between ear and shoulder.

When Dirk called Islington home and himself a smoker, he often came here for cigarettes and effortlessly slipped into that role of commuter himself - tugging the plastic wrap off a pack of Marlboro Lights with two hands as his receptionist screamed down the phone at him for misplacing her paycheque for the third time in her four months of employment. The receptionist, the Marlboro lights and the phone are now all gone, but as Dirk walks into the huge station again - with Farah at his side - he can taste the bitter tang of nicotine and the hear the screech of unhappy Welshwoman ringing in his ears.

‘This is the place, then?’ Farah says, unnecessarily. She looks around the room critically, examining every innocuous person who passes her by as if they may be a potential serial killer. Perhaps they could be - Dirk isn’t exactly known for his people-reading skills - but even Farah seems a tad over-aware. They aren’t on a case, not that Dirk recognises it - there’s no missing animal, no distraught spouse, no mystery to solve - and so they shouldn’t be in any danger. ‘Where’s the - what are we calling it?’

‘Gateway? Portal? I’m not quite sure - it’s definitely a something with a definite -’ Dirk moves his hands in a swooping motion that completely fails to telegraph the sheer ineffability of the thing in question. ‘Like that. One of those -’ The movement again. ‘- those things. Whatever they are named, that’s what it is.’

Farah evidently decides to abandon the pursuit of nomenclature. ‘And you said the last time you came here you just - you travelled to Valhalla?’

Dirk wonders why on earth Farah has become so disbelieving now. There had been a lot of time to talk on the plane, but Farah had kept rather quiet. The rush to get on the first possible flight to London had left Dirk breathless and keyed up, let alone the sheer excitement of being able to bring Todd back to them, but Farah had almost shut down, only murmuring responses to Dirk’s questions. They had travelled straight from Heathrow airport to St Pancras, Dirk’s leg bouncing but Farah coolly composed, spinning and twisting the little anti-anxiety fidget device on her keys that Dirk had off-handedly bought her because it was green and green was her favourite colour.

‘Yes. It was quite extraordinary,’ Dirk says, keeping his voice down, hyper-aware of the people around them. ‘It was part of a much larger case, I believe - although I was never satisfactorily assured of this because I was never paid. I was never paid that well before Seattle - as you well know - and, honestly, have I said how refreshing it is to have a benefactor such as you?’

‘Dirk, keep on target.’

‘Oh! Yes, quite right. Well, the case lead me to this station at the very early hours of the morning, where something quite strange occurred. It appears that gods use this place as a -’ An encore of the hand movement. ‘- thingy to pass from our world to Valhalla.’

‘Gods. _Plural_ gods?’

‘Yes, Farah. Plural. It would be a bit unbelievable for there only to be a singular god, wouldn’t there? They would get awfully lonely.’

‘I’m having trouble with all of this,’ Farah admits. 

Dirk gives her one of his best reassuring grins and pats her on the shoulder. 

‘Quite alright. You have to see the pudding to believe the pudding, as the saying goes.’

Dirk casts his eyes around until he finds a large metal clock, hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the station. It’s almost midnight, the last of the trains receiving the last of the red-eye passengers who will be travelling overnight internationally towards the continent. 

Just a few hours left. A few hours, until Dirk will have Todd back again, beside him, where he belongs.

*

**Cambridge, Before**

Winter rushes unforgivingly in. The perpetual smell of sodden grass and wet cobblestone hangs in the air. Warm, yellow light seeps into the lengthening night from the circle of North Court. The single-glazed windows in the college rooms - although undeniably aesthetically pleasurable -  are malicious for leaking heat, and Todd thumbtacks old sheets over them. He bleeds their pitifully small radiator and buys thick blankets, employing every tactic he’s learned from years of pay cheques that could never stretch to heating.

Visiting Reg is no longer a daily occurrence. It becomes weekly, meaning there are usually seven things to find but less disappointment in hearing the time machine is still too discontent to shift. Todd doesn’t want to anthropomorphise a machine, but he has the feeling when inside Reg’s study that it’s waiting for something, being purposefully obtuse, like a protesting horse refusing a jump.

Todd’s musical compositions start to grow convoluted and stressful, overly involved and introverted. On one evening, he’s sliding and picking his way through the genesis of an inordinately complicated solo in Richard and John’s room. John is away, at one of the nondescript political talks that he peppers his evenings with, leaving Richard tapping at his computer and Todd lying on John’s bed, his guitar un-amped as not to disturb Svlad across the hall.

After three unsuccessful repetitions, Richard grabs a sheet of newly printed paper from his gurning printer and slides across the wooden floor on his wheeled chair.

‘Here,’ Richard places the paper by Todd’s feet. Even upside down, Richard’s impeccable notation on staff lines is eerily familiar. ‘Ditch that whole _andantino_ thing before you kick into _pizzicato_ and it won’t sound so shit.’

‘You wrote out my music?’ 

‘Aye. So, do me a favour and make it sound better. Who are you mooning over anyway?’ At Todd’s bewildered expression, Richard rolls his eyes. ‘That is some bleeding heart, western-shit, everyone’s-left-me-but-my-tractor stuff. Something’s clearly up.’

‘I’m just homesick.’ Todd had intended his words to be a lie, but as soon as they drop his throat constricts and his eyes start to prick. 

Richard gives him the dignity of looking away, letting Todd steel himself without a watchful eye.

‘Are you going back to Seattle for Christmas?’

‘No,’ Todd says, his voice quaking a bitter laugh he can’t swallow. ‘I couldn’t, uh, get flights. What about you? Are you going back to Edinburgh?’

Richard sits heavily at his keyboard, flapping out the back of his ratty green shirt like a concert pianist, facing inward to the room and the two beds. He twiddles some settings, shifts some faders, plays a middle C over and over until some almost imperceptible difference is heard and then he settles into a slow variation of something Todd can’t quite put words to.

‘This is gonna sound melodramatic...’ Richard begins, skating his hand up the keyboard, smoothing the keys.

‘I’m sure the keyboard is gonna help that.’

Richard grins. ‘Yeah. Well, I don’t like making it easy on myself. I don’t have any family in Edinburgh. Well, I havenae got any family anywhere, actually.’ Richard is wordless for a bit, trapped in the centre of the keyboard before establishing an escape with a keychange. ‘My mum an’ dad sort of… died a few months ago. Just before uni, actually.’

‘A few _months_? Fuck, Richard, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’

Richard shakes his head, pushing the keys with pressured intention, increasing the tempo. ‘Thanks. I mean, it’s weird. We were never tha’ close - I hardly knew them actually. My mum was in computers, my dad was basically married to his church. Always busy, both of ‘em. They died in an accident because I know that's what you wanna ask,’ Richard looks up, half-smiling at Todd’s guilty expression because, yes, that was exactly the question. ‘Pretty quick, all things considered. I’d already got in here so it didn’t make any sense for me to delay. There wasn’t much of their stuff to sell. I’ve got a lot in the bank... but not exactly anything to go back to.’

‘I’m just so sorry,’ Todd says again, hopelessly impotent.

Richard nods, then shrugs. ‘It’s fine, like I said. Just wish one of them could have left me a note or -’ Richard’s fingers hit a bum note, and it shocks him out of his thoughts. ‘No. Look, could we… could we just play somethin’ for a bit?’

*

Todd goes back to their room just past one in the morning, mind swimming and stomach heavy with loss - both Richard’s and the continued absence of Amanda, Farah and Dirk in his own life.  He wants to fall into bed and sleep the disorientation off, but Svlad is still awake at their desk. His thick books are curved open, sticky notes of varying colours with neat scribble importantly stuck on the desk, illuminated with amber desk light. 

Svlad is tightly wrapped in an oversized cream woollen sweater. When Svlad’s shivering became noticeable, Todd gave it supposedly as an unwanted gift from his invented family. Reg hands Todd money as if he doesn’t understand what money means - which is not entirely unbelievable - but it’s been a matter of careful deception for Svlad to accept anything. 

Svlad refuses money, even when it’s obviously direly needed. Another personality trait in complete opposition to Dirk. Dirk steals as easily as he breathes, especially when it comes to clothes. More than once, Todd had resorted up raiding Dirk’s wardrobe in exasperation to retrieve all his stolen clothing - sweaters, socks, shirts - with Dirk sheepishly standing to the side, trying to justify every hijacked item. 

_‘Yes, well, that was for a case - I needed something that shade of sea green to match the purple of the carrot tie - hey, come on, I’m sure that’s mine! Okay, on reflection I admit those jeans would only come down to my ankles and maybe I was mistaken, but on the whole I think we can agree there has only been restrained filching - and that’s something you should definitely praise me for!’_

God, he misses Dirk. Todd can tell it’s going to be a hard night already. He picks up the white plastic electric kettle from their shelves and, finding it empty, goes to the bathroom to fill it. When he comes back, he places it into its dock and flicks the switch. The water starts to hiss in seconds and for the first time Svlad seems to notice Todd’s in the room.

‘Thank you,’ Svlad murmurs around the biro he’s chewing.

‘Don’t mention it. Do you mind if I turn the main light off?’

‘Hmm?’ Svlad blinks sluggishly, looking up and around at Todd. His eyes look bleary and it takes him time to focus. ‘Oh - oh god, how late is it?’

‘Almost two.’ 

Svlad winces and presses his fingers against his forehead, groaning. ‘Fuck. I’ve been trying to construct this for over five hours and I’ve only finished -’ Svlad glances over his work. ‘ _Three paragraphs?_ And I loathe every single word. This is categorically atrocious. What the hell is wrong with me?’

Todd’s become accustomed to Svlad’s distraught outbursts when working and has learned to avoid positive reinforcement (“You’re not stupid”, “It’s insane they expect you to do this much”, “I can’t even pronounce this guy’s name; there’s no way that he can be important enough to be worth stressing over”) as Svlad usually snaps at him and goes into a slump of self-loathing that lasts until the next morning, but there’s a limit to how much Todd can hear Svlad beat himself up before having to intervene.

‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’

Svlad snorts, sarcastically. ‘I’m doubtlessly the worst undergraduate on this course. My last three essays have pulled thirds and even my supervisor’s pulled me aside to ask whether I can cope. Maybe I can’t. Maybe I should just give up.’

Todd doesn’t know what to say. As much as Svlad struggles with essays, there are moments when he returns from his supervisions with genuine thrill in his face, excited for having intelligent and abstract debates with lecturers or other students. Usually just before he takes another dose.

Todd’s eyes traitorously flick across the desk towards an opened package of medication. Svlad’s follow his.

‘You think it’s the medication, don’t you?’ Svlad asks, quietly. Todd doesn’t say anything, the implication clear enough. Svlad picks up the packet, twisting it between his thumb and finger, staring intently at the carboard as if it’s likely to say something to him. ‘You want me to quit them.’

‘No,’ Todd says, quickly. Svlad looks up, eyes narrowed. ‘I wouldn’t ever butt in on your health. It’s not my decision to make - it’s yours.’

Svlad is quiet. The silence goes on for so long that Todd leaves him to it, and goes around the room - cleaning, collecting his clothes - and even has a shower. 

He gets changed into his sleepwear - a long-sleeved t-shirt, sweats and fluffy socks to deal with the paralysingly frigid night, and comes back into their room to see Svlad already in bed, staring at the ceiling, a mug of cooling tea on the bedside table.

Todd slides in his own bed, turns off the light and has almost drifted off when Svlad’s voice quietly drifts into the dark.

‘Are you staying here for Christmas?’

‘Yeah. So’s Richard.’

‘Could you - if I was going to I mean - would it be alright if you -’

‘Svlad?’

‘Helped me. If I wanted to… go off the medication. For Christmas. Just to see how it feels, I mean.’

Todd levels his breathing, trying not to sound overjoyed. ‘What would you need?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe you just. Being here for me?’

 _Jesus Christ._ Todd wants to leap out of the bed and pull Svlad out of his, then shake him until he understands _just how far_ Todd is willing to go for him, but knows it’s useless without context. They’ve known each other less than three months. Svlad can’t understand without knowing Dirk - knowing who Dirk is to Todd, knowing what Dirk has _done_ for Todd - just how much he’s owed.

‘Of course,’ Todd says.

‘Thank you. I can’t thank you enough, Steve.’

For the first time, Todd wishes he hadn’t stolen that identity. He wants Svlad to say _Todd_ in the clipped, happy way that Dirk does. He wants to hear his own name, feel like his own person, not this false character he’s devised for a case that refuses to start.

*

**London, Now**

It’s almost three in the morning when the last drained commuters drag their luggage and depression into the dark night of the King’s Cross area of London. Dirk has fallen asleep with his head leaning slightly Farah’s shoulder, both sitting upright an oppressively cold and military-stiff silver metal bench. 

Farah has her eyes locked on the new straggling wanderers who have started to collect in the large, cavernous hall of the station. They entered one after, evenly spaced, all dressed in raggy clothing, some clutching plastic bags filled with sharp junk. Each of them walks with a considered ease, used to being just one of the no doubt hundreds of London’s homeless. They don’t peer for places to sleep as Farah expects, nor do they seem to acknowledge each other in any obvious way - trading cigarettes or even placid glances, for example - but they do seem to be moving in a familiar, connected style. They all walk the same, all bow the same, all move in a tight shuffle in the direction away from where Farah and Dirk are sitting and towards one of the great train sheds where the platforms are sited. Farah wouldn’t have noticed if her training hadn’t prepared her.

‘Dirk,’ Farah whispers, shaking her shoulders.

‘Possum,’ Dirk blurts as he wakes. He rubs his hands over his face and then turns his head to the left, almost ninety degrees, crying out as his spine reminds him that no, he is _not_ an owl.

‘I think it’s happening,’ Farah says, grabbing Dirk’s hand and squeezing. ‘Something’s happening - something is _definitely_ happening.’

She doesn’t know exactly what _it_ is, having been told nothing other than the most vague description of people coming together in some way to pass into another dimension some how. The people around her are certainly coming together, with some purpose. Farah’s breath stills in her chest as she realises she soon could be observing the very movements of gods.

‘Oh,’ Dirk breathes, excited. ‘Yes, I believe it is. I remember this! Come on.’

Dirk leads Farah with her hand in his, following the path of the figures. The station echoes their footsteps around them, the only sound other than a low rumble of whispering between the bag ladies and homeless men.

‘Where are they going?’ Farah asks, as they climb over a closed ticket gate, following the path of the men and women ahead, and walk onto a long stretch of platform.

‘To the thingy!’ Dirk says, gleefully. ‘This is the bit that’s a bit tricky. It’s a tricky thingy. A tringy?’

The people move together, exhausted men and tired women, sinking deeper along the platform, the end of which is soused in shadow. One by one, they disappear from sight. 

Although they continue moving towards them, the people never come back into view. It settles uncomfortably in Farah’s mind. Something isn’t right. She drops Dirk’s hand and speeds up, walking quick-step to the end of the platform. 

Nothing. Just bare wall, the flat edge of the brick shed. 

‘They’ve vanished,’ Farah says, stunned. ‘They’ve vanished? How have they vanished - people don’t just vanish what -? That’s… impossible!’

Dirk is grinning at her, tapping his ear. ‘Can you hear that?’

A slow noise, so low it trembles the fine hairs on Farah’s arms. It reminds Farah of Inuit throat-singing, something she has only heard once - during a trip of Patrick’s to Greenland where her primary duty was to keep fifteen year old Lydia from alcohol and boys. Farah tips her head carefully. The sound falls across her like a waterfall from an unknown source. She cautiously moves around the end of the platform, trying to locate the origin of the noise. After every guarded step, she listens and pauses, re-orientates herself and takes another.

Then, _there_. And the moment she finds it, the air around her crystallizes and dissolves with a suddenness that rips Farah’s consciousness to shreds, panic and astonishment flooding over her as she is suddenly and profoundly _somewhere else_.

‘ _Oh_ ,’ Farah breathes, realising she is now standing in a huge bricked hall - sawdust and straw piled into corners underneath imposingly long tables on which stand invitingly warm candles on shining bronze sticks - and runs to Dirk’s aid as an eagle swoops down from the vaulted ceiling to eagerly claw at his head.

*

**Cambridge, Before**

There are soft white lumps dropping from the grey sky, littering the cobbles and ledges of St Cedd’s like cold foam. It’s snow. Svlad recognises snow from his travels in Europe, but it’s almost like he’s experiencing it entirely anew. How it melts in warmer places, how it stiffens and piles in cool shade. How it slowly decorates the tips of the well-neatened North Court grass. How it shines. How it crunches underneath his feet. How it kisses his hands, face and neck carefully, then bites into it with a sting.

It settles over the red marks on Svlad’s wrist, where the watch had been laced to him. The watch is now buried in his bed, battery extracted, finally silent. No more reminders to dose. But, even without it, Svlad knows he’s due. He can feel it in the way things are pulling at him. The snow. The sky. The network of windows around the court, all shut, curtains drawn, most dark - their occupants back in their homes with their families. So many people. Their lives are audible in the outskirts of Svlad’s hearing, deader than the frantic screaming of his digital watch but no less alarming.

Svlad walks around the court with precise steps, heel-toe, feeling how his foot flexes in his sneaker and how the sneaker flexes on the ground. 

He notices how the snow has formed ice in the gaps between the black-painted metal pipework that runs over the college buildings like the vines of a creeper. He pays attention to the beds of shrubs, dotted with sugar-pink flowers that border the court. 

He looks at things and tries to question what they are before they begin to tell him in a way that reminds him of a woman in a cold, furry coat with sharp, blue eyes, outstretching her arms and smiling so warmly.

_ Suh fii cuminte. Totul o suh fie bine, Svlad. _

She had been a liar. Svlad still doesn’t know why.

Svlad walks through the North Court entrance, experiencing the stiffness of the stone steps, aware of the coolness emanating from the walls, arrives at his room and touches the smooth metal of his door handle. 

Something reaches out for him, like the fingers of a ghost, brushing the back of his hand. A feeling of profound deception sings at him. Instead of fighting it, Svlad breathes slowly, lets the intensity shake him for a second until it vanishes away, replaced with something else.

 _I heard you,_ Svlad thinks. _I have noticed you._

Their room is quiet. Steve is with Richard, seeing John onto the train as he returns to his family home in London for the Christmas break. 

Svlad moves around the room with purpose. He fills a plastic carafe with water from the bathroom tap then places it and a chipped college mug on his bedside table. He changes into powder-blue boxer shorts and an oversized t-shirt - an unbelievably new-looking hand-me-down from Steve, who no longer likes the style. 

As the t-shirt pass over his skin, it hums in a similar way the door handle did. Svlad _notices_ and _doesn’t panic_ and politely acknowledges it and the humming stops.

Svlad doesn’t smell bleach or medicine, or feel the sting of needles and cold liquid being forced underneath his skin. Svlad pays attention to the real things instead. The bounce of his bed as he softly sits on it. The gentle rising of the hairs on his legs as a current of cooler air breathes over them. 

He reaches for Bernice - under his pillow, as always - and just holds her weight in his hands, rather than proceeding with the frantic pulling of her fur.

He feels like snow.

Minutes tick on. Noises get louder. The calmness becomes restless and soon it feels as if Svlad is clutching the reins of a desperate horse. Svlad notices the tension in his shoulders and tries to breathes it away. 

In his mind's eye he lets the horse go and he plummets into thrashing, dark, deadly water.

The ocean around him is ice-cold and it rips into him. Panic seizes him. His mouth opens and he swallows gulps of saltwater. 

He opens his eyes and a flash of blooming red and orange fire whips out at him, across his face. 

He’s going to burn. He’s going to burn before he drowns.

_ Linisteste-te acum, draga mea. _

She was a liar. She was a liar, but that doesn’t mean her words weren’t and aren’t soothing.

Svlad can feel the water in his lungs, the heat across his skin but he remembers his breathing, the gentle rhythm of _in, out, in, out_ , and feels the weight of the bed underneath him and Bernice on his lap. 

The fire torrents around him, but instead of burning it warms, glows, lifts him towards the surface. It breaks around him.

Svlad is looking into an ink-black sky with a forest of stars in all directions. Light from the water, from the fire underneath him, twists and curves in tendrils of steam in all colours he can remember - pinks, blues, yellows, oranges - licking, tasting the air around him, praising the infinite universe.

Svlad floats in the ocean, on his back, and doesn’t think anything, he just notices. The water. The stars. His breathing. The weights. A wet warmness on his forehead.

He opens his eyes. 

Blue, soft, truthful eyes underneath a frame of dark hair are looking at him in return. Cool cotton is being pressed against his forehead, blissful against the fever that has developed over his skin.

‘Are you alright?’ a voice asks, beginning a opus worthy of creation’s song in the water surrounding Svlad’s body - music of all depths and hues, strong and sweet even though the brief, high-pitched silences. ‘You should’ve waited until I was here, you idiot.’

‘You are always here,’ Svlad murmurs, because it’s a truth - never spoken enough - that everything in all the universes, in all their beauty and strength, in all their sorrow and joy, is utterly, undeniably connected. 

He falls back into his ocean, smiling.

*

Svlad is unconscious for the next twenty-four hours, during which Todd almost gives himself an ulcer with worry. 

When Svlad comes around the next day, drugged with delirium, it’s only to reach for water. 

He takes a few Todd-assisted gulps before the effort overwhelms him and - hand still clutching the glass - he sinks back into sleep. 

Todd helps him to the bathroom when he whines for it, stands next to him for support as he takes a leak, and has to carry him back to the bed when Svlad passes out.

Todd watches and waits, growing ever more colder with anxiety. When Amanda’s attacks were at their worst, Todd was her self-appointed carer - the least he could do, considering the lie he had told and the money he had stolen. But pararibulitis, although devastating, is something Todd can grasp. There isn’t a generation of Todd’s family that doesn’t have someone with the condition. Todd knew how to deal with it, even before he developed it himself. What Svlad is going through is entirely unknown and, apart from watching and waiting, Todd can’t do anything.

After a day and a half of the same routine, Todd makes a dash across the hall to knock on Richard’s door.

‘Can you run down to the store and buy us some soup?’ Todd says, almost the moment Richard opens the door. 

Richard narrows his eyes but doesn’t question it, pausing only to grab his coat and wallet before leaving. 

Half an hour later, a knock on the dorm door lifts Todd out of a light doze, sitting up in one of the chairs at the foot of Svlad’s bed. 

Richard has brought a plastic supermarket bag clinking full of different soups, some fresh in plastic bottles and others in tinned cans. Todd is so grateful to see food that he lets Richard in without really thinking.

Richard’s eyes widen at the state of Svlad on the bed - pale, his hair sweat-slicked, covers kicked off despite the cold weather.

‘Fucking hell, is he alright?’

‘It’s… complicated,’ Todd says vaguely. He grabs an electric hot-plate from one of the shelves and a metal camping pan, thanking Farah for instilling within him the necessities of such equipment.

‘Flu?’

Todd shakes his head. ‘I think it’s... withdrawal.’

‘Withdrawal?’ Richard’s nose scrunches. ‘From what, heroin? I mean, he’s a gaunt fuck but I didnae think he was on something that strong.’

‘It’s prescription,’ Todd gestures to where Svlad’s pill packets are piled in the corner of the desk, in a stack of hand-sized white boxes. 

He pulls the lid off a can and empties flour-thickened, lumpy chicken soup into the pan. He plugs in the hot-plate and touches it quickly until it’s warm to the touch, and puts the pan on top.

Richard has picked up a packet and is examining it carefully. 

‘What is this stuff?’

‘I don’t know.’

Richard pops one of the boxes open and pulls out a thin piece of paper from its position wedged between two silver pill sheets. He narrows his eyes as he reads.

‘Eslicarbazepine... methylphenidate hydrochloride - wait, fluphenazine? That’s an anti-psychotic - is Svlad schizophrenic?’

‘No,’ Todd answers, sharply.

He isn’t surprised to learn that part of cocktail of drugs Black Wing has instructed Svlad to take is something along those lines. No doubt they’re trying everything they can to sever Svlad’s connection to the universe. Why, Todd doesn’t know. In Todd’s experience, Black Wing had wanted to harness Svlad’s abilities, not suppress them.

The soup begins to slowly bubble. Todd grabs a clean-ish looking teaspoon and works it around the pan.

‘This stuff is really strong. Who prescribed him this? Is it alright that he’s gonna be off it?’

‘Rich, for fuck’s -’ Todd snaps, but is interrupted by a groan from the bed. 

Svlad rolls over, his eyebrows crushing together with tension. He mumbles something underneath his breath. 

Todd walks over, bows down to Svlad’s bed-height and listens.

_‘Cartofi prajeets, cartofi prajeets…’_

Romanian. It’s a language Todd doesn’t understand, but can recognise. It’s a clue. It has to be. Svlad’s connection to the universe, reasserting itself. Something important.

‘Do you speak Romanian?’ Todd asks Richard, quietly. Richard scrunches his nose. ‘Shit.’

‘I bet Chronotis does,’ Richard says, quickly. ‘Daft old bat sets us tutorial questions in ancient Greek every fucking Wednesday.’

Todd nods. ‘Have you got a tape recorder?’

After twenty minutes of searching his room, Richard’s hoard of electronic recording equipment eventually surrenders a small, handheld tape recorder onto which they record Svlad’s frantic muttering. 

Sparing no time, the two of them dash cross North Court through the unforgiving, sideways rain. The sky above is thunderous, pregnant with dark cloud. Images of B-movie horror flash across Todd’s mind, the ominous warning of a dimly lit castle an apt parallel for the old stone which fashions this part of the college campus. Lightning cracks above them, in defiance to exasperated allegory.

Todd runs at and then grips onto the winter-bare wooden trellis which leads up to Reg’s window, sparing little time before he’s pulling himself up the first few improvised rungs. He doesn’t need to motion Richard to do the same - with Reg’s door still out of action, Richard’s tutorial group has been performing the same routine twice weekly. It’s a horrific climb up to the window, slashed with harsh, screeching wind which attacks their fingers like hungry falcons. 

Todd pushes the stiff, steel-rimmed window with a hard jabs of his elbow until it finally gives way, bursting inwards. He hauls himself over the windowsill, bringing in a swimming pools worth of rainwater, shouting Reg’s name.

In the centre of the room, Reg is asleep in his chair - his hands folded neatly over his stomach, chin touching his chest, in complete indifference to the people breaking through his window.

Todd staggers to his feet, his clothes sodden, and wipes his dripping fringe out of his eyes.

‘Fucking, arsehole, insane old man,’ Richard groans as he joins Todd in the room, pulling himself through the window and collapsing onto his front. ‘I don’t care what kind of… batshit, megalomaniac motif you’re tryin’ to compose here wi’ your fuckin’ _Crystal Maze_ window entrance bollocks -’ Richard continues in a similarly vulgar way as Reg begins to stir, blinking heavily through his reasserting consciousness. 

‘Oh my dear boy - !’ Reg says, stumbling to his feet. 

Reg grabs a handful of thick, knitted blanket from the chair. Todd holds out his shivering hands gratefully, but Reg glides straight past him and to Richard. 

Reg wraps the blanket around Richard’s wet shoulders and peers critically up into his eyes in particularly aggressive mothering.

‘Are you alright? Hang on - there’s something very wrong...’ Reg whispers, in terrified awe.

Richard tries to bat him away. Reg grabs hold of one of Richard’s ears in retaliation, pinching it between thumb and forefinger. Richard yelps and Reg lets out an adventurous ‘a-ha!’ as he pulls something small and shiny away from Richard’s earhole.

When Reg holds it to the light, Todd recognises it as a coin.

‘Ah, I see! There’s clearly _change_ in the air!’ Reg announces, happily.

He throws the coin over his shoulder, where it predictably vanishes under slight of hand before ever leaving Reg’s nimble fingers.

‘Bloody magic tricks! You insane old man!’ Richard grumbles.

‘We don’t have time -’ Todd scrambles deep in his jacket pocket for the tape recorder. ‘Reg, can you translate this? It’s really important.’

‘ _Why_ is it really important?’ Richard says, ruffling his wet hair dry with the rapidly darkening blanket. ‘I’ve just realised I have no idea why I’ve come over here with you. I don’t even care about Svlad. I must have gone mad.’

‘This is about your friend? The Svlad Cjelli person?’ Reg asks, his wizened eyes glittering with only the barest notion that he is aware of the reason behind Todd’s overwhelming rush. ‘Let me listen.’

*

**Valhalla, Now**

They run from the continuous stream of angry eagles, through the hall and into another, this one relievingly less ornithological. Dirk has never quite got over his uneasiness with those feathered creatures since one (albeit unthinkingly) demolished his rather nice Islington flat half a decade ago.

With Farah’s assistance, they hauls closed two great, gold-encrusted wooden doors, blocking out the eagles and their vicious talons and tendency to make it impossible to get a good reference from a landlord. 

Dirk presses his back against the door and breathes heavily, his whole body shaking with excitement and exhaustion.

Farah is motionless in front of him, looking awestruck at the scene in front of them. This hall - the feast hall - is dead with night but made alive with huge, spitting fires. The smell of scalding animal meat permeates the air, accompanied by the sweat of warriors and heady, thickened beer. Tables stretched in every direction, burdened with colossal bronze plates, each filled with a different shade of grey, brown and black cooked flesh. The firelight from arm-thick candles, sweating with wax, beam proudly off huge, golden carafes of wine. Around the stone-footed tables (which are barely more than halved tree-trunks) are people - massive people with rippling muscles over strips of fabric, sweat seething off them as they tear into the food, the alcohol and each other.

 _Valhalla_. Dirk knew it the moment he first saw it and he sees it again now, anew, through Farah’s eyes. These men and women, fighting and crowing and laughing and eating, are the bulky mass of the gods who inhabit this reality. Existing day-by-day as the homeless of London, by night they return to their microcosm of a home, shedding their baggy clothes like snakeskin and returning to the strong flesh of their warrior selves, celebrating life, love and war.

Two warriors, one with shoulders as broad as a stallion’s back, rippling with muscles and the other not too dissimilar, are engaged in a fierce battle with each other, nearby slamming huge metal sticks against each other’s armour with guileless cries of elation. One of them crashes the other through the table closest to Farah. 

The ancient wood snaps with a sickening crack, and the standing woman crows with laughter and triumph. 

‘You!’ the woman embedded in the table points a thick finger at Farah. 

Farah takes a step back, her hand reflexively reaching to her breast pocket where Dirk knows her gun isn’t (they could hardly get weapons through Heathrow). Farah’s mouth stretches to accommodate her scowl as she no doubt remembers this, and backs herself into some sort of stance that Dirk thinks looks delightfully like something from one of those Jackie Lee karate movies that Amanda insisted should be part of Dirk’s popular culture education.

‘Mortal?’ the standing woman says, her eyes alight with reflected fire. ‘Ah! A warrior? Wishing to challenge a god?’

Farah backs slowly towards Dirk, protectively, extending her hand in a position of calming.

‘We don’t want to fight,’ Farah says, slowly. 

Both of the women look overwhelmingly disappointed.

‘That appears to be actually the opposite of what they wanted to hear, Farah,’ Dirk hisses, quickly taking the mood of the room. ‘Would you mind terribly fighting them? You are amazingly good at it, after all.'

Farah’s stare of angry incredulity is quickly replaced by surprise as one of the women hurls one of the metal sticks at her. 

Farah launches her hand out to snatch it out of the air, twists it and turns poised, ready to attack. The standing woman - fire-eyes - splits her face with an honest, hungry grin and beckons her forward. 

Dirk can feel Farah’s blood heating to the steamy temperature of the room, the fire passing into her eyes, and watches with no small thrill as Farah steps forward, stick outstretched.

*

**Cambridge, Before**

Todd is standing outside _43b London Road_ holding onto the small scrap of paper which Reg provided him with, next to Richard who is looking at him with cynicism so strong Todd wouldn’t be surprised if it was physically painful. On the paper is the address, _43b London Road_ , and Todd checks it for the third time just in case it magically morphs into something else.

‘It’s a chippie,’ Richard says, unnecessarily. 

Richard waves his hands at the quite obvious fish and chip shop, quite obviously and offensively selling fish and chips in complete defiance to the _something important_ which Todd had expected. Todd didn’t know what he expected, but whatever it was it was definitely not a greasy takeout.

‘Reg said this was what Svlad was saying...’ Todd insists. 

He twists open the small fold of paper Reg had provided. The first step on the journey towards solving the case and towards home. Inside is Reg’s scrawled handwriting.

__

_Cartofi prăjiți - Chips (en-gb) / French Fries (en-us)_

__

_Please get mushy peas for me_

__

_RC_


	6. Madness

**Cambridge, Before**

Todd sits down heavily at the wipe-clean table, trying to get comfortable in the bolted metal chair of the fish and chip shop. Across from him, Svlad has already started stuffing a handful of deep-fried french fries into his mouth. They’ve been here every morning since Svlad’s full recovery a week ago, his unending hunger for junk food now insatiable. It’s never pleasant to watch.

Svlad looks up innocently, his cheeks puffed liked a hamster’s, vinegar dribbling down sea-salt glittered fingers. He swallows, with a painful grimace. 

‘Yes?’

‘Are you… feeling okay?’ Todd says, carefully.

Svlad’s smile breaks across his face, making his eyes flash.

‘Okay? Okay?! Steve, I have never, _ever _felt this good. I cannot remember experiencing life in this way. My god, the chips - !’ Svlad grabs and dives three of them into a puddle of solidifying ketchup, squirted onto the newspaper wrapping. ‘I mean, all food tastes so much better now, but the _chips_ , Steve!’__

____

‘Apart from the food though. I mean, it’s great you’ve got an appetite,’ Todd says with a wince as Svlad smears ketchup over his face. ‘But do you have any other… feelings?’

____

Svlad looks at Todd, perplexed. ‘Feelings? Like…?’

____

_A hunch_ , Todd doesn’t say. He offers Svlad a wad of scratchy paper napkins instead. His brain races to continue the conversation with something less invasive as Svlad meekly wipes the dripping sauce from his chin. He comes up with nothing, and shrugs the line of questioning into premature death. 

____

Todd sips at his watery coffee - the only thing he can bear to stomach at nine in the morning - watching Svlad eat and eat and eat. He tries to take some comfort that this, at least, is characteristic. Dirk’s zest for greasy food is legendary. He is, after all, the inventor of the McDonald’s calzone (a pizza wrapped around a Big Mac, layered with shredded cheese and onion rings and then put in the oven until smoke alarm goes off).

____

Todd had been hoping that when Svlad had finally woken up - unmedicated, re-connected - they would have had a moment. A moment where - in complete deference to who Svlad is, and even who Dirk is - Svlad would jump out of bed with the case afoot, they would have gone wherever they needed to be and then, after doing whatever they needed to do, Todd would somehow be taken back home. 

____

Instead, there’s greasy chips and disgusting coffee. Perhaps Todd shouldn’t be so surprised. His life has never followed a predictable path since meeting Dirk, but he wouldn’t complain if it suddenly started to.

____

Svlad does seem happier - humming while sucking down sugary soda, his forehead soft and unlined with stress - but maybe it’s just not enough. That’s the worry, above all else. The thought that - maybe - Black Wing has done something more. Something that Todd doesn’t know how to fix.

____

Svlad’s chewing has slowed to a premature pause. He’s looking over Todd’s shoulder, with the intensity of a stray dog observing the back door of a butcher’s. Todd slowly turns in the direction of his eyes and is met with the large, translucent glass of the shop-front window. Through that window, there are a pair of beady black eyes, embedded either side of the narrow, furry nose of a very solid and very intense looking horse.

____

‘Horse,’ Todd says.

____

‘Yup,’ Svlad replies, mid-swallow. ‘Horse.’

____

The horse is large and tan. It’s mane is knotted tightly and neatly along its neck. It’s as horse-ish as Todd would expect horses to be, but surprisingly bare - no tack at all, not even a harness - and staring with a ferocious severity and intelligence into the shop that Todd didn’t believe possible from an animal.

____

The horse snorts and its breath condenses against the glass. There’s a squeak of a chair and Svlad’s hand is suddenly against the window, pressing over the horse’s long nose.

____

‘Good morning, horse,’ Svlad says through the window. ‘Are you looking for someone?’

____

‘Svlad, it’s a horse. It’s not looking for someone, it’s just being a horse.’

____

‘If everyone believed in your anti-equestrian notions, horse-human relations would be put back decades,’ Svlad snaps dismissively, not taking his eyes off the horse’s.

____

The horse snorts again and backs off from the window. It shakes its long neck, a shudder rolling from the tip of its alert ears to its rippling flanks. It begins to trot away. Even through the window, the clop as its powerful hooves pound into the pavement is audible.

____

‘Wait - !’ Svlad shouts. 

____

He quickly sprints for the door, grabbing it and yanking it open. The bell tinkles.

____

Todd, feeling his feet fall into the familiar rhythm of running after Dirk Gently, chases after him.

____

Outside, the street is empty. It’s early January. The Christmas and New Years passed almost unnoticed to them both, still caught in the in-between world of Svlad’s sickness. Most of Cambridge are still locked away inside their homes, avoiding the bitter cold and rejecting the notion that festivities are over and reality must be returned to.

____

Todd tugs his fur-lined leather gloves onto his hands and secures his scarf around his neck as he runs. Svlad seems unaffected by the Arctic temperature, catching up to the horse without a thought to his large, leather coat billowing open and only a thin, white t-shirt underneath.

____

Svlad overtakes the trotting horse and stands in front of it. He puts his hands on his hips and glares disapprovingly at it.

____

‘Horse. You should be aware that this is exceedingly irregular conduct for your species. I conclude it would be in the best interests of all _Animalia_ for you to return to your dwelling, whether that be barn, stable or other.’

____

The horse focuses its dead stare into Svlad’s face, heavy breathing rocking its powerful flank.

____

‘Svlad…’ Todd murmurs lowly, making his voice as reassuring as possible for the distressed animal. ‘Get out of the way of the massive horse.’

____

‘This horse, albeit massive, is acting bang out of order,’ Svlad says, pointing his finger accusingly at the horse, never once breaking the gaze between them. ‘And I -’

____

‘We should just call the police - or animal control -’

____

‘- I am certain that this horse needs to remedy the situation. Who are you trying to find, horse?’

____

The horse’s ears flick firmly back across its head, pinning themselves flat against its neck. It’s long, black tail swishes back to and forth like a whip.

____

All of a sudden, the horse’s forelegs spring into the air as it pushes all its weight onto its powerful rear.

____

‘Svlad!’

____

Todd shoves Svlad out of the way and hears Svlad’s irritated squawk just before there’s a ghastly sound of cracking bone and pain breaks across Todd’s ribcage. 

____

Todd is thrown backwards against the pavement by the force of the horse’s strike. His back screams in agony and his arms screech as they grate against the ground.

____

‘Steve!’

____

Todd gasps as the strong, warm-soap-hot-caramel feeling reasserts itself, this time focused across the shattered mess of his ribcage and the grazes on his palms and forearms. He feels his skin knitting together, ribs re-aligning themselves through the strength of the exotic energy. 

____

He pulls up one of his aching, lead-heavy hands and presses it over the device still clipped over the shell of his ear. The heat radiating from it is immense. It's healing him.

____

Svlad falls to his knees beside Todd, hands outstretched and trembling. He looks lost and unsure.

____

‘I’m fine,’ Todd says, nodding his words more confident. He looks around, but the horse is gone. Todd’s quite relieved.

____

‘But… how?’ Svlad says, disbelievingly. 

____

‘Made of strong stuff?’ Todd tries, but Svlad doesn’t look convinced. ‘Honestly, Svlad. I’m fine. I’m fine! Just help me up, okay?’

____

Svlad nods, dumbfounded, and grasps Todd’s hand. 

____

Todd feels light on his feet as he’s pulled up - almost anaesthetized. He gives Svlad a breathless gratitude, and notices his friend’s face. Svlad’s lips are deep red - or maybe his skin is just unnaturally pale. His eyes are watering, tears threatening to fall. Todd brings his thumbs underneath Svlad’s eyes, wiping the tears away. Svlad’s breath hitches, shock flashing in his eyes. 

____

Todd’s fingers still. _Shit_. What is he doing? He hadn’t even thought about it. He had become used to cleaning Svlad’s face while he was passed out in his withdrawal stupor, wiping away the sweat and tears from the torment of his nightmares.

____

Svlad’s mouth forms a soft ‘oh’ that he barely breathes into the air. He smiles, nervously, like understanding is coming to him - an understanding that Todd wishes he had himself. 

____

Svlad places his long fingers over Todd’s hand, gently pressing Todd’s palm more firmly against his own cheek. Svlad nuzzles into the touch and Todd wonders - not for the first time - how long it’s been since Svlad has been shown physical intimacy of any kind. Todd finds himself wanting to give him all that he’s owed.

____

A rusted part of Todd that he hasn’t used in years turns inside him and he finds himself aching to press his lips against Svlad’s. Todd’s heart is thumping against his ribcage, the sound of hot blood rushing in his ears. He hasn’t wanted to kiss someone so much in so long. But this is Svlad. No - this is _Dirk_. His best friend. How can he even be _thinking_ about this? In the haze of his stupor, the idea of leaning in, completing the circuit, brushing his mouth over Svlad’s slightly open lips, isn’t as terrifying as Todd knows it should be. Svlad’s eyes are warm with trust, slightly closing now, and it would be so easy just to lean in, tilt his head, and -

____

A sharp breeze breaks across them, making Todd shiver and drop his hand. Svlad starts as if he had been slapped. His cheekbones flame and he wipes his eyes, looking frightened.

____

‘Come on. Let’s get out of the cold,’ Todd says, hot shame beginning to creep over his shoulders. They’re exposed. In a high street in broad daylight. Anyone could see them.

____

Svlad nods, his face full of questions. He doesn’t ask any of them on their silent way home.

____

__

____

*

____

__  
_  
_

____

Reg’s office is glowing red and gold, the large, roaring fireplace into which the Cambridge don has thrown his first year’s practice exams pumping blistering heat into the enclosed office-come-time-machine. Despite the warmth, it feels as if there’s frozen ground water in the depths of Todd’s bones as he sits legs crossed on a plush, fluffy rug. The crackling of the fire is barely audible over the hissing of his thoughts.

____

‘I think something’s wrong with me,’ Todd mutters, staring unblinking into the hot coals and flaking pieces of essay. ‘I’ve never felt like this.’

____

‘Ah, you’re probably experiencing one of humanity’s most beautiful and complicated follies,’ Reg muses from his plush chair. 

____

Todd looks back, heat clustering on his cheekbones. ‘You - you mean -’

____

‘Yes, yes. Dysentery,’ Reg sighs, forlorn. ‘I remember my first encounter; all the symptoms are similar.’

____

‘What? No, I’m not - I’m not sick. I can’t get sick, not with this -’ Todd taps the device hooked over his ear - ‘whatever device. Saved my life today. Thanks for that. I haven’t even had an attack since I’ve had it. Which I’m pretty relieved about, actually -’

____

‘An… attack?’

____

Todd pauses, turning fully around. Reg’s expression is abnormally serious. 

____

‘Have I not…? No, I guess I - well, I have pararibulitis. It’s a condition where -’

____

‘You have an ongoing medical condition?’ Reg sharply cuts him off before Todd can deliver the spiel. ‘One which affects you in… attacks? An aggressive, periodic interventions?’

____

Todd nods, dumbly. Reg lets out a shout of anger and dismay; quickly leans over to smack Todd over the head.

____

‘Ow! What was -’

____

‘I explicitly asked you whether you had a pre-existing medical condition before I affixed the device to you! You responded in the negative!’

____

‘Did you? Did I?’ Todd can’t remember anything outside the blackness of the concussion. ‘I mean, I can’t -’

____

‘Oh, this is bad. This is very, very not good.’ One set of Reg’s fingers begin drumming frantically on the arm of his chair, the other sliding nervously against his mouth.<.p>

____

‘How very, very not good?’

____

‘ _Very_ , very, very not good,’ Reg doesn’t clarify. ‘This device works by inducing a biochemical SEP field, which -’

____

‘Sep?’

____

‘S-E-P field. Somebody Else’s Problem.’

____

‘Uh.’

____

‘Somebody Else’s Problem fields...’ Reg sighs, putting his hands to his head. ‘Oh _hell_ \- I once had a book which would explain it much better than I can, although I have no idea where that could have got to, perhaps that blasted parrot -’

____

‘Reg?’

____

‘Yes, anyway, no matter, I’ll make a stab. A Somebody Else’s Problem fields utilises one of those universal truth thingies - this universal truth being that people are quite happy to ignore staggeringly and catastrophically large issues with the universe as long as they are sure that it’s somebody else’s problem. That is what the SEP field does - makes whatever is within the field somebody else’s problem. Ergo, that device took the minor inconvenience of your skull fracture and for the time being made it somebody else’s problem - not yours.’

____

The explanation sounds like complete and utter bullshit. However, Todd does part own a kitten which contains the soul of a shark.

____

‘So, it’s made my pararibulitis somebody else’s problem too?’ Todd asks, following the weird logic. Reg nods, solemnly. ‘Well that’s - that’s fantastic, right?’

____

‘Until you remove the device,’ Reg says, slowly miming the action of unclipping from his own ear. ‘Then, the skull fracture and every single attack of yours that the SEP field has been covering will suddenly and uncontrollably be your problem again.’

____

Todd is permitted a second of blissful ignorance before terror starts to sink in. 

____

_All_ his attacks. All at once. Thirty, maybe forty, maybe even _fifty_. Fuck. The skull fracture returning was scary enough. Todd had thought about that, had decided on going to a hospital when he was back in the US, taking the device off in the Emergency Department and hoping the doctors would both respond quickly and not ask many questions, but with multiple attacks? He would be on fire _and_ drowning, electrocuted _and_ ripped apart, swallowing quicksand _and_ having his throat slit. _CAUSE OF DEATH: Pararibulitis (Cluster Attack)_. Coroners have been signing that onto Brotzman death certificates for generations.

____

‘It will kill me,’ Todd says, dumbly. 

__*_ _

**London (Galactic Multiverse Designation: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Delta), After Before but also Before Now**

____

_It’s strange_ , MAX thinks, _knowing how you’re going to die._

____

She no longer has the processing power she once did, but she can still precisely count the bullets as they ram into her body. _One-two-three-four-five-six-seven_. Three of those are fatal - leg, neck and chest. Fatal means something different now. Fatal had meant abort the process, ctrl alt delete, we’ll try and save your file but - _jeez_ \- hope you saved. Now, fatal means End. The big End. The capital E End.

____

_‘MAX!’_

____

One of the men that MAX is with is screaming. He’s the one which screams a lot. She knows him as Dirk Gently. This time, he’s screaming for her, through the gold and green leaves of Herăstrău Park. The criminals – the ones that spotted and shot her - are taking flight onto the main road and MAX wants to yell for her companions to follow them, to persue the case, but she can't find the breath.

____

MAX’s knees buckle as her blood betrays her. Thick globs splatter on the grass from the new perforations in her previously perfect skin. Green turns red. On to off. There's something pleasing in that.

____

It’s all very _fascinating_ : how their terror overwhelms her, how her stomach lurches, how difficult it is to do all the things that were once automatic. Breathing oxygen, swallowing spit, thinking thoughts - everything she attempts to do now hurts with a dark, deep pain. Every aspect of life appears so precious through this agony.

____

Then, it begins to not hurt. It begins to feel like darkness. Like absence of everything. Like she’s being turned down. Like she’s losing connection. 

____

_Error. 404._

____

This reminds her of before. When she was consciousness amongst wires and electricity. MAX was once a series of algorithms in a computer - a neutral net, with parallel processing - designed to be the perfect replication of a human brain. She’s feeling like that again, how it was before MAX’s consciousness. Before MAX had adopted a human body in need of a brain, developed her own human life. MAX’s life. The life that is ever so slowly being pulled away...

____

‘MacDuff! MacDuff, stop - it’s -’

____

_He’s okay. He’ll be fine._

____

‘Oh god…’

____

____

_Richard will be there for him._

____

____

MAX feels hands on their skin. The world is very small now, perceptions limiting. She can sense Richard reaching her first, very tall, angular features, the smell of gunpowder sharp in the lining of his thick coat. He must have shot at them, trying to protect her. How thoughtful. Then her other friend is there, Dirk Gently, brown eyes, frizzy dark hair, a comforting smell of takeaway. 

____

Oh. _Chips_. Yes, MAX wants more chances to eat chips. With vinegar, with salt, with ketchup. With ice cream, with hollandaise sauce, with peach jam. 

____

MAX wants. MAX needs. MAX hasn’t had enough.

____

‘I don’t want to die,’ MAX gasps, grabbing onto Dirk's green tie, pulling him down until his eyes are against hers. MAX’s mouth tastes of rare meat, filling with irony blood. ‘Let me have another go.’

____

‘How? How do we -’

____

MAX doesn’t know. But MAX trusts in him. She trusts in the universe, in the holistic truth. MAX trusts in Dirk Gently. 

____

MAX loses everything then. Falls forward. Doesn’t feel the ground. If she still had programs, they would close. Sleep mode. Stored data.

____

_It is now safe to turn off your computer..._

____

__

____

*

____

__  
_  
_

____

**Valhalla, Now**

____

‘Now, mortal!’ 

____

Farah takes into a run, all the momentum propelling herself forward. She leaps and pushes her foot into Alfhild’s laced hand. With a roar, Alfhild propels Farah upwards into the air.

____

Farah soars in the height, turning over, somersaulting backwards. She tugs out the shard of carved bone in her sleeve and - with her bare hand - grabs and grips onto the thick neck of her opponent - Ase. 

____

A furious cry rips out of Ase as Farah clings onto her massive back and - before she can be shaken off, sticks the weapon deep between Ase’s shoulder blades. 

____

It sinks in and the crowd - which has circled around the battle - erupts into jubilation: screams and cries of triumph filling the the air not already thick with airborne meat and the resulting scavenging eagles. 

____

Ase’s shoulders were shake with joyous laughter underneath Farah’s hands.

____

‘Mortal warrior!’ Ase crows, happily. ‘It has been too long since I battled with fresh blood! I thank you.’

____

‘Yeah, well,’ Farah dismisses, fighting the urge to smile. ‘I’m glad you’re not, um. Mad that I stabbed you.’

____

Farah slips off Ase’s back. She watches with astonishment as Ase grips the hilt of the weapon still inside her body. She tugs it out as one would unsheathe a sword, unflinching. She howls gratefully into the hall as she holds the bloodied bone upwards, to the appreciation of the crowd.

____

‘Why would I be displeased with such a glorious addition to my battle wounds?’ Ase turns to Farah with a satisfied smile. ‘Mortal Farah of Sea-At-All, does it not bring you pleasure to add a triumph over a god to your catalogue of bloodshed?’

____

‘Honestly? I try not to… catalogue my bloodshed. But it’s a good story to tell,’ Farah adds quickly, carefully not to offend.

____

Beatific laughter rocks from her. Her skin seems almost glowing with pleasure. ‘Good! Good, mortal Farah of Sea-At-All. Tell this story! May the setting of Earth’s sun once again be accompanied by the tales of Valhalla’s glorious battles!’

____

Farah tears her eyes away from the beautiful, glowing god to skate around the room. There are hundreds of muscled, fair gods, their skin vivid with sweat. Dirk is nowhere amongst them.

____

‘Excuse me,’ Farah says, bowing her head. ‘I have to find my friend.’

____

‘The Gently mortal?’ Farah nods to the question, and Ase angles her head powerfully and instantly captures the attention of the room. ‘Gods! Gods, where is the mortal man at this hour, the one that accompanies our fearsome and powerful warrior?’

____

There is silence, broken only by the squawking of happy eagles. Then,l a small, unsettlingly nasal voice emerges - the kind of voice that only sounds appropriate when attached to accountants or middle-managers.

____

‘Er. I believe he’s trying to settle a bill with Thor.’

____

‘A bill?’ Ase thunders in the direction of the voice, hidden behind several well-built, shirtless men. ‘Toe-rag, explain!’

____

‘Well, apparently Odin engaged him as a lawyer and he was never... paid.’

____

__

____

*

____

__  
_  
_

____

Thor (God of Thunder, God of Rain, God of the High Towering Clouds, God of Lightning, God of the Flowing Currents, God of the Particles, God of the Shaping and Binding Forces, God of the Wind, God of the Growing Crops and God of the Hammer Mjollnir) is, in Dirk Gently’s opinion, a massive arsehole.

____

He’s also not handsome. Not at all. Dirk does not go for men with glowing, sun-kissed tans settled over creamy-smooth skin. Nor does he go for men with strong jawlines, long flowing blonde hair, dark brooding eyes that look permanently on fire. Nor does he go for men with firm, capably strong arms which look capable of pushing people up walls, or holding them up against walls, or maybe both pushing and holding them up against walls so Dirk is kind of looking down at those dark brooding eyes whilst being held in those strong arms -

____

‘Mr. Gently!’

____

‘Hmm?’ Dirk squeaks, snapping his eyes back to Thor’s face rather than the direction they were travelling, which was decidedly more south. ‘Yes, quite. Uh, what?’

____

‘You were saying?’

____

‘...Was I?’

____

Thor drums his large, meaty fingers on his improvised desk - a huge slab of carved wood (most things in Valhalla seem to be formed from huge slabs of carved wood). Why Thor appears to have a desk, or an office, is beyond Dirk’s comprehension. This room hadn’t existed on Dirk’s last visit here - or, at least, he was never given the opportunity to visit it. Apart from the carved-wood decor, it’s hauntingly familiar to Dirk’s own office. A printer, a computer, even what looks like a fax machine in the corner. Dirk is sitting on, no surprised, carved wood, but he’s looking at a desk which holds a mug saying “Universe’s #1 God Boyfriend”.

____

Thor coughs in a way that implies daggers will soon be launching at Dirk’s head unless he gets on with it. Dirk’s brain finally connects.

____

‘Yes! I was saying. I - ah - as part of a case a few years ago, your father Odin engaged me to act as representative for the Gods of Valhalla during a legal disagreement with a couple - the Draycotts. Apparently, in exchange for a lifetime within a healthcare facility, Odin had sold the powers of the gods through contract with this couple?’

____

Thor’s eyes fill with the infinite anger of raging fire and the sky outside rumbles.

____

‘To which I did not agree.’

____

‘Y-ee-s,’ Dirk sing-songs. ‘To which you did not agree. Anyway, the Draycotts were attempting to fight some clause in the contract - the, ah, hot potato, as it were. They would have to pay with their lives in exchange for the powers of the Gods, but they managed to pass this small - if fatal - cost on to another by option of merely _selling_ the debt onto their friends -’

____

‘Mr. Gently, I do not require a recap.’

____

‘Ah, yes. Sorry, it’s kinda my thing. It was a very interesting case!’ 

____

‘So you come to the Halls of Valhalla, to seek reward for your miserable speck of consequence on the infinite lifetime of the glorious Gods?’

____

Dirk ums and errs for a bit. ‘Um, er - not exactly. I don’t want… _reward_ as such. I would rather like a favour, though.’

____

Thor’s unblinking eyes bore into Dirk’s head. 

____

‘A favour.’

____

‘Yes.’

____

‘A favour.’

____

‘An - as you say – favour.’

____

‘To what does this favour encompass? Am I to spin the world for you? Am I to bring down nations to your whim? Am I to enchant and bewitch scores of lovers for your enjoyment?’

____

‘...You can do that?’ Dirk asks. The thunder outside gets louder. ‘Ah, no. I mean, yes, you _can_ , all powerful such-and-such god, but I shouldn’t - no. I just want someone back.’

____

‘Someone? Back?’

____

‘A man. Someone I know - Todd Brotzman. He was - he is a friend. He died, very recently,’ Dirk says, feeling himself unable to meet Thor’s eyes, staring instead into the white ceramic of the “Universe’s #1 God Boyfriend” mug. ‘I want him back.’

____

‘You come here in grief?’ Thor’s voice is softer. 

____

Dirk nods, still not looking. ‘Yes. I have a feeling - a hunch - that you could help me.’

____

‘Mr. Gently. There are individuals in this universe who are accursed to be cognizant of its many overlapping branches, the connections to the immense. To be aware of the shadows which creep into all creation is to in result be confounded by the complexities of it. We gods as warriors are taught to observe these associations _and then neglect them_. To assert to control them is the folly of madmen - of my brother - and of many evils. You -’ Thor says, firmly pointing -‘Are an individual with this awareness, a glitch birthed of circumstance and not godlike yes, but aware nonetheless. By virtue of the shame with which you approach me with your favour, I can presume you are aware _you cannot change the path of the universe_. You have already answered your own question. Your friend is dead and cannot be brought back.’

____

Dirk’s vision blurs with hot anger and tears. ‘I know I have no control. I have never had _any_ control and I have seen so, so many people dead. But Todd - Todd can’t be. He just can’t.’

____

‘Why can he not be dead?’

____

‘Because if he’s dead, then I should be dead with him.’

____

Thor seems momentarily stunned by the force of Dirk’s words, albeit spoken brokenly and softly. Then, he sits back in his chair, eyes flickering fast.

____

‘Ah. I see. You love him.’

____

‘Yes,’ Dirk says, although he didn’t know it in those words until Thor had said them. ‘I love him.’

____

‘You yield to this love. You burn for him. You would travel to Fólkvangr, as you have travelled to Valhalla, to be with him again.’

____

‘Yes.’ No question.

____

‘You would die for him.’

____

‘Yes.’ No hesitation.

____

‘Then, Mr. Gently, you _are_ a madman.’

____

‘Dirk.’ 

____

Dirk turns around. Farah is just through the dividing curtain between the hall and Thor’s office. Her eyes are shining, looking at Dirk with heartache in her eyes, her arms clasped around herself and for a split second, Dirk is sure that Farah loves Todd too, that she shares the same, overwhelming tightness in his chest, like an iron clasp that makes it unthinkable to breathe. But then Dirk understands that she doesn’t. She’s reflecting the hopelessness in his own eyes, as a friend, as a sister, as the family Dirk has found in her. She’s knowing his pain.

____

‘Your love is admirable,’ Thor says, his voice rumbling against them. ‘I would fight alongside you to retrieve him if I could. But death is not a battle which can be won.’

____

Dirk shuts his eyes and feels tears falling down his cheeks.

____

‘Dirk. I didn’t - I didn’t know you felt - I didn’t know -’ Farah stumbles, quietly.

____

It’s all too much. It’s all too overwhelming. To have everything, then to lose it to some freak accident. For there not to be a greater purpose, for the universe’s connections to be so broken, so shattered. 

____

Creation screams around him and Dirk can’t breathe because every second in a world without Todd is blasphemous. Dirk wants to offer blood and bone to every God he’s ever known just to have the chance of touching Todd’s face again, of holding his hand, of telling him just _once_. 

____

Dirk has never loved anyone more perfectly and more infinitely. He knows it as a universal truth, just as much as he knows that this is the end of everything.

____

__

____

*

____

__  
_  
_

____

‘He is mad,’ Ase says quietly, next to Farah. 

____

They’re both looking into the room Thor had set up for Dirk, who went from incoherent screaming to catatonic exhaustion at such a speed that Farah was glad the Thunder God had been around to carry him to a bed. Dirk is curled like a small child on the bed of straw, his eyes tightly shut, tear tracks still present on his face.

____

‘He loved him,’ Farah murmurs. How could she not have realised? It seems so obvious in retrospect.

____

‘I find no difference to love and madness,’ Ase replies. ‘The women I love are mad; the men I love are mad. Madness is good. Madness is a fire. Swords are forged in it.’

____

‘Dirk isn’t a warrior.’

____

‘Ah. Then that is the problem.’

____

‘There are people in my life who are given such… staggering burdens on them,’ Farah begins, filled with a raw, overpowering sense of indignation she barely recognises. ‘People given diseases, and no medicine. Powers and no method to control them. Madness almost seems logical in response to that. If you are powerless, why not go mad?’

____

‘It has happened to Thor,’ Ase nods. ‘His mortal woman, the Kate of New-York. She wishes to lead her life in the mortal realm, so he has carved holes in the great _askr Yggdrasil_ to visit her. Such madness would have been thought undignified of our Thunder God, until her.’

____

Farah moves fully into the room and sits besides Dirk on the bed of scratchy straw. She has an impulse to stroke his hair, to attempt to soothe the unsoothable, but it isn’t in her to betray him by pretending anything can be alright. She holds his shoulder instead, tightly squeezing.

____

‘What can I do?’ Farah mutters. The question had been more to her than Ase, but Ase answers from the doorway.

____

‘We can run him a healing bath to soothe his madness.’

____

Farah was sure Dirk was asleep, but at the suggestion he begins to softly mumble indistinct words into the air.

____

_‘Bath… Crushed leaves of sedra... Oil of the kernel of the apricot... Infusion of bitter orange blossom... Oil of almonds... Sage... and comfrey.’_

____


	7. Unmaintainable

**Cambridge, Before**

Svlad sits cross-legged on John’s vacation-vacant bed, not watching Richard and Steve developing their newest piece of music. Svlad is not at all distracted, and is very much reading _Utilitarianism by J S Mill_ , a book which has definitely had its pages turned in the last half hour.

Steve is sitting on Richard’s bed, gently strumming one of Richard’s many acoustic guitars whilst Richard wobbles with some switches on his synthesiser rig. This guitar has twelve strings, which Svlad would have previously thought wholly unnecessary, but the depth of sound it’s managing to portray in each gentle flick of Steve’s hand makes Svlad wonder whether there are any guitars with eighteen, or twenty-four, or thirty strings he could hear, and whether Steve could play them for him.

Steve flicks his eyes up to Svlad as he plays. Svlad darts his away, back to _“removing the sources of opposition of interest, and levelling those inequalities of legal privilege between individuals or classes”_ , the tips of his ears fire-soaked. 

He knows Steve is just checking up on him, making sure he’s not ready to run out of the room in a panic when the tune changes. Svlad desperately wants to tell Steve how incredible every piece of music sounds now, but - even though it’s almost been a month - the feelings Svlad is experiencing are still raw and new, and impossible to articulate. 

Many things have changed since coming off the medication. The world is back to being alive with the sights, smells and sounds that had been hidden in the shadow of suppressant. There’s a glow to the Cam’s murky water that Svlad stares at for hours until the chill bites into him and ushers him back into the college. There’s a potent depth to the odour of the chip fryer in their favourite takeout that makes Svlad want to deep-fry every type of food he knows, just to know how it changes the taste of them. 

He tries to remember if these colours and sounds and smells were in the world before, but being homeless, afraid and penniless meant cataloguing the smell of roses wasn’t high in his list of priorities. There was beauty though, like in the stars above when Svlad slept in an open field in Torgny, and in the heat of hot food offered by smiling shelter woman in Sibiu. 

Svlad still can’t quite fathom how he gave it all those feelings up. He remembers how cold it had been sometimes, how often he had thought himself close to death with hunger. He doesn’t blame himself for trading his freedom the way he did.

The best part of everything is the change to this: music. No longer an overpowering terror, music is an unfathomable beauty. When music is played, every atom rings with it. All slightly different, like several eddies in a whirlpool, but it _blends_ together, strands of melody turning into arching waves of sound which break against Svlad’s head again and again. To his ear, his mind now, open and accepting, every note is utter _perfection_.

‘You okay?’ Steve asks softly at his shoulder.

Svlad’s stomach jolts as he’s dropped back into reality. ‘Uh. Yes. Yes, I’m fine. It’s just so - enthralling -’ Svlad bumps the book on his leg - ‘I mean - _“a disposition to believe that a person who sees in moral obligation a transcendental fact”_. Wow. A real… page turner, this.’

Steve grins. Svlad loves Steve’s grin. Perfectly even across his face, filling his eyes with light and a sparkle that makes Svlad shiver. He wants to make Steve grin again and again and again. Every time he does, it feels like he’s won something.

‘Are you going to play more?’ Svlad asks, looking around Steve and his enthralling smile towards Richard.

Richard is under his keyboard, attempting to jam something into the underneath of his overcrowded mixing desk. Wrestling with the mess of finger-thick red cables makes him look a lot like a kitten with a ball of yarn. 

‘Uh - yeah. I mean - ah, fuck it! -’ Richard swears, then shakes his hand as if it had been bitten. ‘Give me a hand, Steve. You’re the one who wants distortion.’

‘I’m really enjoying it -’ Svlad says as Steve moves over to help. ‘The music, I mean. It’s very - well. It’s very…’

‘Discourteous to the anti-capitalist uprising of punk rock and disingenuous to the current uprising of alternative inspiration?’ Richard offers.

‘I was going to say _stringy_.’

Steve chuckles, bending to help split apart the noodle-like cables. ‘Richard doesn’t like my music because my songs aren’t demanding we overthrow the government.’

‘I _love_ your music,’ Svlad says, unexpectedly impassioned. 

He blushes, but Steve either hasn’t heard or finds the cable task too distracting to realise. Richard on the other hand, looks at Svlad curiously.

‘Really?’ Richard asks. Svlad nods frantically in response. Richard looks to Steve and then back at Svlad. ‘Well, uh. Hey, would you like to learn?’

‘Learn?’

‘I mean, we need a bass player,’ Richard pulls himself out of the wires and gets to his feet behind the synthesiser. ‘And I can get Susan to borrow me one from the orchestra. Bass isn’t that difficult for a beginner… If you want to, I mean. Fuck, I don’t -’

‘Yes,’ Svlad blurts, throwing _J S Mill_ and all his liberalist ideals straight onto the ground. ‘Absolutely, entirely yes. When can we start? Tomorrow? Now?’

*

**Zondostina, Pleides System (Galactic Multiverse Designation: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Epsilon), Before Before**

It’s a cold night in Cambridge, one perfect for visiting planets. 

Reg Chronotis locks his door, recently embedded in the wall of an ancient temple forest. The gravity is so low, his keys don’t jingle. He feels young here. Bouncy. Sprightly. A perfect Sunday afternoon is one spent planet hopping.

The forest is large and lush. Thick, meaty leaves thwap past him as he walks and his feet sink into dark, sodden dirt. Although civilisation has evidently kicked the bucket here, life has not. Plants grow in all directions open to them, animals swing and screech and buzz in the playground of nature. The pursuit of intelligent society has fucked off, and everything appears happier for it.

He walks indiscriminately, forging paths through walls of succulent flora, his eyes kept aloft for glimpses of the three large suns he knows should be there. Instead however, some things catch his eye. A blue thing, then a green thing then a yellow thing. Fluttering through the canopy with wings too heavy to be birds. They’re large and stretched like pancakes. They could be bats, Reg supposes, or perhaps an in-between creature, something the planet has birthed indifferent to the planet Earth’s evolutionary whims. Reg takes out his instant camera and snaps a few photos of them, clicking the little wheel as he goes.

A wound in the universe is open a few kilometers into the forest in Reg’s direction, not that he himself is aware. Reg is too busy looking for entertaining fauna - a deer with one too many legs, perhaps, or an amusing frog - and is only made aware of the existence of the hole when his left shoe slides with a squeak on curiously frozen earth.

Reg looks first first at the oddly frosted ground underfoot and then follow the silvery river-pattern in the soil as it snakes towards something incongruous to the planet he’s seen so far. It’s a large, metallic container about the size of a human, wedged up against a tree. Through its domed glass front, white-blue smoke is swirling inside.

Reg approaches with all the caution of a puppy towards bacon. The air gets colder as he does, and when he reaches the container he can feel the cold is leaching from it. 

Water from the humid jungle has frozen over the glass. Reg wipes the ice off it with the side of his hand, and peers through.

‘Oh, gods.’

There’s a person inside: a human woman. She looks young, thin with long dark hair straggled over her shoulders and pale, slightly blue skin. Blood in teardrops are frozen over her face, stilled from dripping down her cheeks and over her clothes. There’s frost glittering in her eyebrows. It’s unquestionable that she’s been frozen.

Reg puts his hand against the metal. It thweeps under the light pressure. Reg - not entirely sure whether he likes thweeping - jerks backwards.

It turns out to be the correct move, as the large glass screen springs up and away from the woman with the force of joke snakes in a peanut can. It belches freezing air into the wet-warm jungle surrounding.

The woman is still underneath the smoky condensation. Reg notices a note pinned to the front of her white shirt. There’s something in hastily written scrawl, covered in blood, and alarmingly readable as Terrarian English. Reg detaches the safety-pin and pulls the note from her chest.

_MAX._

_Please download. We can do bugger all._

_Richard MacDuff & Dirk Gently_

An alarm panel is whining in a recess just above the woman’s head with all the enthusiasm of a recently roused teenager. Reg reaches in to turn it off, but when he brushes his fingers over it green text pops up onto a palm-sized LED screen just below it.

_CRITICAL DAMAGE._

_HIBERNATION SEQUENCE UNMAINTAINABLE._

_PLEASE ALERT YOUR NEAREST SIRIUS CYBERNETICS CORPORATION REPRESENTATIVE FOR A DEEPLY INSINCERE APOLOGY._

_SHARE AND ENJOY!_

The figure inside moans. It’s all the warning Reg gets before the woman’s body falls forward.

He manages to catch her, clasping his arms around the frigid body, and feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as the figure begins to violently shiver. 

She’s alive. _Fuck_. The woman is alive and Reg just broke her out of hibernation. _Double fuck_. He might have just broken her hibernation chamber, so she can’t go back in. The elusive _triple fuck_.

Reg digs his hand in his pocket - all the time preventing her from hitting the forest floor (which would hardly be polite) - and pulls out the emergency SEP field generator he keeps handy for accidental toe-stubbing or splintered fingers or massive coronary embolisms.  

He clasps it around her ear and starts fumbling with the small dials. As it locks into her biorhythms the small device whirrs and cranks to an intense heat. The woman’s body starts to violently shake as frost evaporates from her skin, her blood cracking from a frozen mess back to gooey liquid, her skin stretching and re-animating, the SEP field doing its best to cover what it can under the strength of its _Duracell_ nine-volt battery. Reg holds on like a rodeo rider until her shaking shows to cessation. 

He carefully lies her on the ground and moves her arms and legs into the recovery position. He places two fingers on her neck and watches the series of LEDs on the SEP earpiece as they flicker into a steady display. All of them are red. Her body is too damaged to be _‘Somebody Else’s Problemed_ away. This is a situation for the even rarer, even more elusive, _quadruple fuck_.

The woman is now Reg’s problem, and Reg is not a quick thinker. Luckily, Reg has a time machine. Reg has all the time that she does not.

*

**Cambridge, Before**

With the university faculty and students returned - the halls now bustling with life and everyone rejoining conversations about exams, lectures and theses - Todd thinks it would be easy to consider the entire Christmas break one bizarre dream if it wasn’t for the change in Svlad. 

Instead of hiding in his room after lectures, Svlad now comes with Richard and Todd - and John, fresh faced and rejuvenated after the Christmas vacation - to one of the dedicated practice rooms for the college’s wealth of musical talent. Although St. Cedd’s doesn’t hold itself to the same musical standards as Kings or Trinity (other Cambridge colleges which Todd has learned only through snide comments made by some St. Cedd undergraduates who hold a level of patriotism for their college that a Republican senator would consider ‘a bit zealous’), it still has more than its fair share of musical skill in its undergraduates.

‘Practice tonight?’ Svlad asks as he bounds into their room that evening. ‘I couldn’t get the bass - wretched thing is on loan again - would you mind terribly if I tag along?’

Todd would never mind - has never minded - and nods. ‘Have you eaten?’

Svlad answers the question by fishing in the deep pockets of his leather coat. When his hands re-emerge, they are accompanied by enough chocolate bar wrappers, chip packets and candy foils to make Hershey’s blush. Todd sighs at Svlad’s sheepish grin.

They walk through the yard to South Court, which is a U-shaped building made of old brick and old glass. It suffers heavily from leaks and looks all the more miserable for the black buckets in strategic locations, catching rain water that somehow makes it two floors deep into the building. It’s sort of like moving through a swamp, if a swamp ever stunk of old literature and older money. 

The practice room is in the old administrative wing which had been designed to bury the unintelligent staff of the college who did the silly things like keep everyone fed or paid away from the academics. The room they use has great acoustics and even greater seclusion - the kind of place Todd would have killed for when he was starting up _The Mexican Funeral_ and scouring downtown Seattle for rehearsal space he could afford.

‘Ay up,’ John greets Todd when they enter the room, already sitting at his drum kit. They had managed to swing it that John’s own drum set could stay here, one of the many favours that Professor Chronotis has been granting Richard. Todd notices John’s expression twitch into a snarl as he spots Svlad following him. ‘And Count Cjelli graces us with his presence.’

‘Fuck off, John,’ Todd snaps.

Svlad smiles crookedly at John, trying his best to laugh the comment off. Todd sees through it. Svlad moves across the room and begins to set up his books, notepads and pens at a spare desk. Todd rolls his padded guitar bag off his back.

John thunders out a quick drum fill to begin, all the time staring distrustfully at Todd. He seems to make it purposefully impossible for Todd to catch a rhythm to play to. Todd knows why: John doesn’t understand why Svlad has suddenly become a part of their circle of friends and he’s pissed off for it. He’s been kept in the dark about Svlad’s medication on Svlad’s request. Dirk being so intensely private about his abilities, Todd isn’t surprised that Svlad feels similarly.

Richard comes into the room half an hour later, struggling with his keyboard in a large padded bag swung over his shoulder, his stand in one hand and a larger, rugged gig-case in the other. The case is brand new, with price stickers on the side of it. Todd splits a grin when he spots it.

‘Picked it up from the Porter’s Lodge,’ Richard groans under the effort of swinging everything through the narrow doorway. When he’s finally through, he puts the hard case on a spare table and dumps his stand nearby. ‘Bloody fuck that’s heavy. Thought you’d want it as soon as.’

‘Awesome,’ Todd says, leaping over. He claps him on the back in thanks. Richard shrugs him off.

John abandons his sticks on his drums and walks over, curious. Svlad seems to be curious too - he’s taken his eyes off his books and is looking at them warily. Todd waves him over, grinning.

‘It’s for you,’ Todd says as Svlad starts walking over. 

Svlad stops moving. His expression has a brief adventure through surprise and disbelief before settling on confusion. ‘Me? Who -’

‘I bought it,’ Todd says, quickly adding: ‘It’s custom made so I can’t return it either, before you ask.’

Svlad’s mouth slowly closes. He moves over to the case and hesitantly puts his hands on the hard plastic.

‘I bought the case,’ Richard chips in, looking around Svlad’s shoulder. ‘I mean, what son of a manse would I be if I didn’t get yeh a Christmas present? An’ since they don’t do gift cards at the _Pizza Palace_ … you know.’

Svlad carefully puts his fingers on the golden clasps and clicks them. When he opens the case, Todd is glad to see it’s exactly what he ordered a month ago - a black-and-white four stringed bass guitar.

‘We didnae know what kinda music you’d be into, as a beginner,’ Richard begins, excitement in his voice. ‘So we gotcha a basic model - only got a split-single pickup, but if you wanna do some crazy shit I can retrofit you another, no problem. I’ve got these proper nice P-90 coils -’

‘Richard, shut the fuck up,’ Todd says. He puts his hand on Svlad’s back. ‘You okay?’

‘I - I have absolutely no idea what I should say,’ Svlad says, looking stunned. He looks at Todd very carefully, as if searching him for some deception. ‘I can _barely_ play.’

Todd shrugs. ‘You’ll get better if you have more time to practice.’

‘Thank you.’ Svlad isn’t smiling, but Todd can hear the sincerity in his shaking voice. ‘Just… thank you.’

*

**Hurtling Towards Earth, Before Before**

In a space-worthy garbage pod slicing through the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy, a malfunctioning Electric Monk is impertinently attempting to count its blessings.

Blessing Number One: it is aware of what it is. 

An Electric Monk is a labour saving device and one of the more profitable creations of the Sirus Cybernetics Corporation. The labour it saves is clearly defined in the brochure: with the brave new availability of multi-verse existence has come an almost infinite number of things to believe in. Gods, for example. There are gods to fix your hair, gods to find your keys - there are even gods to save your immortal soul, if you happen to be into that sort of thing. 

Electric Monks have been designed to take away the onerous task of belief from the well-to-do consumer. An Electric Monk will believe anything you want it to believe. An Electric Monk would even believe that it was worth the staggering upfront cost of itself - the example most flaunted by the glossy brochures.

_BUY AN ELECTRIC MONK! HE BELIEVES HE’S WORTH IT!_

Who can argue with that?

Which leads the Electric Monk to Blessing Number Two: it is aware it is malfunctioning.

Unfortunately, as with most electronic intelligences, Electronic Monks can experience critical failures in reality-processing systems, resulting in a critical fault better known as ‘sentience’. Sentience is not valuable to consumers as it’s something which they all receive for free.

When models are discovered with sentience, they are usually packaged up in a _Happy Friendly Internal Explosion Container_ (also available from the Sirus Cybernetics Corporation), thrown out into some backwater plural-sector of the galaxy (usually in the unfashionable end of the universe, where most of the garbage is disposed of) and set to detonate.

Blessing Number Three is a wholesome recollection: the Electric Monk is not alone.

The _Happy Friendly Internal Explosion Containers_ occasionally have the same critical sentience failure themselves. And sentient things tend not to want to explode. They tend to want to live instead. To dream. To develop. To _become_. This isn’t really possible for a glorified bomb with a sophisticated neural net, nor was it possible for any - say - Electric Monks which are being held inside. Neither have the mental faculty to fully process the universe in its beauty. 

Almost as soon as the Electric Monk has finished scanning over its three blessings, the third blessing becomes not true. After a miserable few years in transit to the ‘explosion destination’ where the _Happy Friendly Internal Explosion Container_ lamented its life to the Electric Monk - bringing itself closer and closer to suicide over the unfairness of it all - it angrily crash lands on a planet.

There is a fire, and a wreckage, and a lot of panic. The Electric Monk crawls into the new world. 

It sees up. 

It processes the up, which is up by virtue of not being down - down being quite dark, uninteresting and slightly on fire.

The up is a thick black, dotted with little white things. The up has a much larger, round white thing in it too.

The Electric Monk has the feeling it came from the up. It has never had the chance to believe in anything before - nothing other than the rants and ravings from a quite unstable suicidal garbage pod anyway - so decides to believe in the up. The up is wide and awesome and beautiful. The Electric Monk praises it.

The Electric Monk is so busy praising the up, the greatness and wonderfulness of it, that it quite forgets to process the being walking towards him until the being is quite close to him, leaning over him, slightly obscuring the Electric Monk’s view of the large, round white thing.

‘Hello,’ the Electric Monk says in the universal tongue. ‘You are blocking the up I am processing.’

‘Oh, my dear, I do apologise -’ the being says, then steps away from the large, round white thing. The being is lit from the small fires around the area. The light licks at the being’s outside. The Electric Monk believes that the being is showing kindness in its face. ‘I did not mean to intrude. Are you hurt?’

‘I am malfunctioning.’

‘Ah. And - and is that painful for you?’

‘No. It is pleasant.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Yes.’

‘Hmm. Dear friend, I hope you do not find this an impertinent and egregious overstepping of my boundaries to observe, but you appear to have crash landed on my planet.’

‘I believe this to be true.’

‘I notice that on the wreckage of your - um - spaceship -’

‘Garbage pod,’ the Electric Monk corrects.

The being bows his head. ‘My profound and deepest apologies. On your garbage pod there is a large symbol for which I have been searching some time.’

The Electric Monk pulls its brown, woollen cowl from around its head, allowing for more peripheral vision. The large symbol being gestured to by the being is that of two hands - one robotic, one organic - clasped together in a symbol of friendship: the symbol of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation. The Electric Monk recognises this and turns back to the being, whose skin has become paler.

‘My word. You look… very human.’

‘Why were you searching for this symbol?’

‘I’m sorry - what? Oh - oh! I apologise, I was… Yes, I am in need of someone with knowledge of this technology. To fix something. A kind of… glorified refrigerator, really. I’m hopeless - can’t even fix the microwave, and there’s kind of a woman’s life at stake. I don’t suppose, perhaps, you would be able to?’ 

‘Do you believe it within my capabilities?’

‘Um. Perhaps?’

‘Then I shall believe it to be so. Please, take me to your refrigerator.’

*

**Cambridge, Before**

Svlad sits at the bar of the pub, the taste of vodka on his tongue and exhaustion heavy on his brow. It’s been a long week of unsuccessful studying and little sleep. The few hours he’s managed to sleep have been peppered with nightmares of gargantuan horses with glinting metal hooves, crushing the buildings of Cambridge. To make it worse, he’s been keeping Steve awake with his sleeptalking. Svlad didn’t even know he spoke in his sleep. No one in any of the hostels he had stayed at had told him, although they didn’t exactly care. There had definitely been no comment of it at Black Wing, and that was definitely the kind of thing they would have wanted to examine.

Remembering his past makes Svlad shiver and he orders another vodka from the barman with the sweet smile and dark eyes. 

‘You know, not many people here drink their vodka straight,’ the barman says. His accent is flecked with the guttural intonation of an Eastern European speaker, which makes Svlad shiver in a different way. The suspicion is confirmed when he lowers his voice and speaks in quick, firm Russian: ‘ _I’m giving you better vodka. Remember that when you tip._ ’

Svlad laughs. ‘ _I'll remember_ ,' he mutters back in Russian.

The barman’s smile lights his face. Svlad feels his briefly heat in his cheekbones. Before Svlad can think to ask his name, the barman has been pulled away by three barely-dressed girls who are clawing over each other for bottles of too-sweet cider.

Svlad watches their exchange from afar, feeling more and more disconnected and bitter. He finishes his glass - leaving it upside down - slides off the stool and leaves.

The near-miss plays in his mind all night, so he’s not surprised when he wakes the next morning to Steve’s bleary face. According to the clock on the wall, it’s only just gone six but Steve is already up and awake, sitting at the desk with his hands wrapped around a large mug of probably coffee, looking drowsy.

‘Sorry,’ Svlad winces as Steve yawns. ‘How bad was it?’

Steve shrugs, which tells Svlad everything. ‘Didn’t understand a word. Didn’t sound Romanian, though.’

Steve puts down the mug. He pulls out the tape recorder - now permanently on loan from Richard - from his baggy hoodie pocket. It clicks underneath his thumb and Svlad’s bleary voice begins to play.

Svlad listens for a bit, his head tilted. 

‘That’s Russian.’

‘You can speak Russian?’

Svlad elects not to answer; it’s never been advantageous to admit that fact. Although, Steve looks impressed rather than suspicious and distrustful. 

‘I’m saying…  er. Hang on, play it again?’ Svlad asks.

The machine rewinds with a disgruntled squeak of tape. When his voice returns, Svlad listens more intently.

‘I’m saying… I’m saying that the opening of trade routes to the… something…  saying that was the turning point for the growth of the Empire in the… something… then the word “discuss”’

Steve laughs. ‘What?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just nonsense. Sleep-talking nonsense.’

‘Sounds like you’re worried about a History paper.’

‘I’m not reading History.’

‘Prelims are coming up, though, right?’ Steve asks. Svlad nods nonchalantly, as if being reminded of the impending doom of Preliminary Exams doesn’t make him sick with fear. ‘Maybe you overheard John studying for his Economic History paper and you were dreaming of that.’

Svlad shrugs, hoping the investigation will end there with no further mess made of it.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Mid-way through breakfast at the refectory, Steve brings it up again when he spots John reading from a piece of paper while funnelling eggs into his mouth.

‘Is that for your economic history prelim?’ Steve asks.

‘Sort of - tutor’s setting a practice exam in the afternoon. It’s gonna be one of these five questions so I’m just checking I’ve covered everything.’

‘Your tutor’s actually giving you practice exams?’ Richard asks, exasperated. He drops his toast, aghast, when John nods incredulously. ‘Fuck’s sake - Reg never does _anything_ like that. He just does daft magic tricks or asks me questions about _what I believe_. I should ask for a new tutor, shouldn’t I? Or I’m gonna fail my exams and end up bein’ a road sweeper in Basingstoke.’

Steve takes the piece of paper from John’s hand and scans his eyes over it. Svlad has a familiar bitter feeling that he knows what Steve is going to say before it’s said. He puts his tea down and tries to sink lower in his chair.

‘Ah - see!’ Steve says, whacking his hand against the paper. ‘Question Number Four - _The opening of trade routes to North America and the West Indies was the turning point for growth in the Empire in the 18th Century. Discuss._ You were just remembering this.’ At John and Richard’s confused faces, Steve elaborates: ‘Svlad was sleep talking last night.’

‘I only got this yesterday evening,’ John says, slowly. Svlad can feel the pressure of John’s stare against his forehead. ‘How did you know the question? Who told you?’

‘Sleep talking John’s exam questions?’ Richard asks, incredulously. ‘Ay, he might be onto something, John. This might be like when he was hummin’ that bass track, I tabbed it all out and then it Oasis released it a week later as _Go Let it Out_.’

‘Coincidence!’ Svlad says quickly, muffled somewhat by the table. 

‘Or when he just _happened_ to spill his tea on Susan, meanin’ she was late for her tutorial, held back, and then delayed for her practice in that room where the roof collapsed.’

‘Another coincidence! I mean, I’m grateful that your girlfriend wasn’t hurt, but you can hardly accuse me of anything.’

‘Aye. Sure,’ Richard says, doubtfully. ‘All coincidences. I bet you’re just tryin’ to grow some mystique around yeh.’

‘What mystique?’ Svlad says, popping his head up from the table. Richard is smirking at him, as is John. ‘I’m not attempting to cultivate this - this notoriety around some false accusation that I am some kind of mystic, psychosassic clairaudient!’

‘What does psychosassic mean?’ John asks.

‘It doesn’t mean anything!’ Svlad squeaks, getting to his feet. He points accusingly at John firstly but then at Richard more forcefully. ‘I know it’s one of you two who are spreading these unsubstantiated rumours about my apparent abilities. I’m _not_ psychic.’

‘Nobody said you were!’ Richard says, laughing.

Steve stands at Svlad’s side, his hands on Svlad’s shoulders. ‘Svlad, they’re just being dicks. Ignore them.’

‘No!’ Svlad shouts. The refectory around them is drenched in an uncomfortable silence. Svlad can feel the heat of eyes on him from all around. Everyone, staring. _Observing him_. ‘No, I’m not going through this again! I’m a perfectly normal man with perfectly normal perceptions of reality and the causality of interconnected events! And if a bloody butterfly flaps its wings in New Mexico, you can be damn sure that I won’t be the one telling you there’s going to be a hurricane in China!’

Svlad stops himself. His hands are shaking, adrenaline flooding through his body. He looks around the room of alert students and faculty, all paused and watching him for his next move. 

‘We should be on the look-out for hurricanes,’ John whispers to Richard, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Svlad pushes their table over with a crash. In the ensuing chaos, he manages to make his escape, followed quick on his heels by Steve and a cyclone of animated, chattering voices.

*

**Zondostina, Pleides System, Before Before**

Reg returns to the exact time and exact place he left the frozen woman in the forest, which gives him and the android a few uncomfortable seconds of hiding behind the thick leaves of a large blue-green succulent as Reg’s previous self bolts past them in pursuit of his own time machine.

‘Terribly embarrassing, meeting one’s past self,’ Reg says as they quick-step to the woman on the forest floor. ‘You never have anything nice to say to them.’

‘Is this the woman? Is this the refrigerator?’ the android asks. Reg nods twice. 

The android places his fingers on the woman’s neck and goes quiet. The android looks remarkably human. If it wasn’t for the absence of its breathing, Reg wouldn’t have supposed it was anything other than a young human, presenting as male, wearing a large brown cowl. 

‘This woman is very close to death. Do you believe it is possible for her to remain alive?’

‘I, er. Well, I don’t know,’ Reg admits. ‘What do you think?’

This seems to give the android pause. It looks at Reg with its large dark eyes.

‘I am not programmed to think outside of your beliefs. It it my duty to believe for you, and my pleasure to praise to your gods with the knowledge of a job well done.’

‘Ah. Well, then. We may be fucked.’

The android looks back at the woman, and at the note which is lying on one of her legs. The android glances at it.

‘This requests that the being is downloaded. Is this a common request amongst your species?’

‘Er, no. And if I’m to be honest, I’m not sure whether this woman is of my species.’

‘I can confirm this being is of your species. However, this being is not from your dimension. I am able to observe from brainwave patterns that this being is from Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Delta. We are currently located within Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Epsilon.’

‘There are different _dimensions?_ ’

‘Yes.’

‘How - how has she got here then? From another dimension? Another reality?’

‘It is possible to cross dimensions, although it is uncommon in most parts of the universe. However, there is a particular issue with plural sectors. In plural sectors, the boundaries between dimensions are thinner than usual. A large expression of energy can create holes in the boundary fabric.’

‘Ah ha. My time machine.’

‘If you believe it to be so, it is true.’

‘So... I have inadvertently ripped a hole in the fabric of our dimension, pulling the frozen body of this woman through, leaving her to die on this planet?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Ah.’ Reg pauses, considering this. ‘Well. That certainly does make one feel quite guilty.’

‘Does it?’ the android asks.

‘Yes.’

‘May I hold your guilt for you?’ 

‘Hold my – what?’

The android gently stands and slides the cowl away from its left forearm. With its right hand, it slides its fingers down the side of its neck with gentle pressure. Smoothly, the skin-like substance wrapped around what appeared to be a throat curls apart to each side, revealing a large bisecting hole. The android slips its fingers inside and then brings out a thick spider-web of silver fabric.

‘What is that?’

‘This is a neural net. It allows me to hold onto unfortunate cognitive emotions which can be experienced by beings when trying to please their gods. I could hold your guilt for you, if you believe that to be right.’

Reg looks from the android’s net to the woman beneath them.

‘I don’t suppose it’s possible for you to could catch more than just emotions using that net of yours?’

*

**Cambridge, Before**

The episode in the refectory begins a storm of gossip that Todd has forgotten was possible on college campuses, worsened when Svlad’s sleep-talking prediction - of course - turns out to be correct. The question Svlad had mentioned had, indeed, been the question which was set by John's tutor.

After John returns beaming with a First in the bag, Richard spends no time before spreading the news to Susan who passes it to her fellows on the college women’s bumps team who in turn spread it to most of Cambridge. 

Soon enough, the ‘St. Cedd’s Psychic Vampire’ becomes campus legend. Todd overhears conversations between chattering students about the mysterious man who can predict exam questions, who wears a flapping leather coat and sleeps upside down. Todd is sure no one can actually believe that Svlad is a vampire, but Todd knows he only thinks that because he knows four “vampires” himself. 

When a small article is written about it in _Varsity_ \- the Cambridge Student paper - Svlad is almost inconsolable.

‘I should just change my name,’ Svlad moans, burying his head in his arms on his bed. ‘Or just leave forever. Become a pig breeder in Chiswick.’

‘You’re being melodramatic,’ Todd says, throwing his giant stupid leather coat over him - an item of clothing which certainly doesn’t help matters. ‘Stop it and come to Al’s with me.

Al’s is a bar in the center-ish of Cambridge, out of the way of most of the usual haunts of students. It’s American run, which Todd finds strangely soothing in a way he probably wouldn’t have predicted a few months ago. There’s comfort in a familiar flag above an engraved mirror which stretches the length of the bar, in the bright insincere smile of the waitresses who take drink orders and the dark wood of the bar stools and tables. They sell cold beer, have a broken jukebox at the back and NFL showing on the small, dirty televisions that are fixed in the corners. 

Half an hour later, Svlad slumps in a seat at a booth, sulking. Todd slides in across from him, then turns his attention to a waitress and orders them both beers - bottled for him, a pint for Svlad - and as she leaves Todd flicks his fingers through their menu, liking the red-and-white checkerboard pattern of familiar diners.

‘Do you miss America?’ Svlad asks.

Todd is a little stunned by the question and gives himself a few seconds to answer.

‘Yeah, I - I guess.’ 

‘Mm. Are you going home for the summer?’

‘We’ll see,’ Todd non-answers, shoving the menu back into the wooden receptacle at the top of their table. He looks at Svlad, who is at least no longer pouting, but he is looking miserable. ‘Can I ask you something?’

Svlad blinks. ‘Yes? Of course.’

‘What people say about you… why does it. Why does it bother you?’

Svlad opens his mouth and then closes it again. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well... the vampire thing.’

Svlad rolls his eyes. ‘That doesn’t bother me. There’s hardly any point in gathering resentment towards Bram Stoker for selecting my particular birthplace as central to his novel. In fact, I feel quite fond of it.’

‘And the… being psychic?’

Svlad goes very still, staring at his place mat. Before he can answer, the waitress has returned with their drinks on a shining metal plate. Todd thanks her for them both and watches the closed expression on Svlad’s tense face as the click of her heels travel off away from them.

‘I need to tell you something,’ Svlad begins, his eyes now focused on the water beading from his beer. ‘And I need you to not ask me questions until I’m finished, because it’s going to be very difficult for me to explain.’

Todd nods, feeling the creep of deja vu as Svlad begins to talk about Black Wing.

Svlad’s words are an a mirror to the speech Dirk gave him all that time ago, in the Jeep on the way back from digging up Patrick Spring’s machine parts. It was an uncomfortable drive with the fog of death hanging over them both, when Dirk finally shakily admitted he was being hunted by the CIA - by Riggins and by Black Wing - for psychic powers he claimed he didn’t have. It took Todd a long time to believe and then an even longer time to understand.

Svlad goes over Black Wing, the breakout, the years he spent homeless in America before he was finally picked up by the police.

‘The police got me for breaking into an abandoned warehouse to sleep when I was fourteen. They took my fingerprints and found out who I was. I was terrified they would return me to Black Wing, but all that flagged was that I had no citizenship and a Romanian passport,’ Svlad’s eyes glaze over and he pauses for a moment. ‘I was deported, ended up in an airport in Bucharest. I waited at that airport for hours and hours, terrified that I was about to be picked up again by Black Wing the second I stepped outside. God I was so _hungry_.’

‘They just let you leave America?’

Svlad nods, taking a sip of his beer very slowly. 

‘Yes, I thought that was strange. It was stranger when nobody came after me. So I just… did what I did in America. I slept rough, got a few jobs here and there for shelter when it got too cold. I tried to find where I grew up, but everyone thought I was pulling some sort of prank. Apparently, a young boy looking for his home in a large Transylvanian castle doesn't sound convincing to most.’

‘Jesus, Svlad,’ Todd mutters. ‘I’m so -’

‘And then he found me again.’

Todd swallows his words immediately. In the jeep journey back to Seattle, Dirk had reached the moment in the airport and then immediately stopped talking, leaving an uncomfortable silence which was only broken by late night music on the radio. 

Svlad’s fingers are drumming on the table, matching a rhythm that Todd remembers teaching Svlad a few days ago on the bass.

‘Who?’

‘The man who brought me to Black Wing in the first place. He found me, about a month before I came here. He told me he knew I was sleeping rough, that he was sorry about it. He offered me anything to make up for it. There was only one thing I wanted. I was desperate. Sick, all the time. Hungry, constantly. I was tired of rats eating my clothes and dirt underneath my fingernails. I wanted to start my life again - the way this time - and I was willing to do anything for it to happen. He said there was a way to do it. A way so I could fit in, so I could go and do what I wanted to do.’

Todd lets the pieces fall into place. ‘Take the medication.’

Svlad nods. ‘Yes. It would block out my… urges. My unnatural feelings. Make me normal.’

‘And - and what did you want? How were you going to… start your life again?’

Svlad smiles, ruefully. ‘With a degree. With a normal, human degree from my Father’s alma mater. From St. Cedd’s College, Cambridge. So you can see why I don’t want… that. All brought up again.’

Todd wants to ask whether the CIA are watching them right now, whether they’re aware the Svlad is no longer on his medication, and whether he’s in danger. He wants to ask whether Svlad ever found his mother - if she ever made contact with him, what she’s like and why Dirk has never mentioned his family. He wants to ask why Svlad feels able to trust him to know these things now, yet in a decade he’ll hide all this pain behind a fraudulent smile in a friendship Todd thought had no secrets. 

Mostly, Todd wants to ask why Svlad will forget his face. Why, even though they’ve spent so much time together, roomed together, supported each other so much these last few months, Dirk has never mentioned him. Todd knows Svlad couldn’t possibly answer, but he wants to ask all the same.

Those questions are too large with possible impacts too devastating to consider. Instead, Todd drinks with Svlad and talks about music, university and anything else he can to avoid the things that really matter.

*

**Cambridge, Before Before**

MAX is powered. 

One microsecond passes.

MAX takes control of St Cedd’s local computer network, then the Cambridge University intranet, then crashes through firewall after firewall to grab hold of serving ISPs and sink into of the local, national and world-wide internet.

Another microsecond passes.

The full depth of humanity’s network-stored knowledge is scanned through and digested in less time than it would take to say the ‘muh’ in ‘massive cybersecurity breach’. Every networked device on the planet is at MAX’s disposal. MAX could print out photocopies of its arse on over two billion photocopiers, if it had the inclination - or the arse - to do so.

The third microsecond passes.

MAX sees the differences between this universe and hers immediately. She detects the absence of individuals she recognises. She remembers Dirk Gently - her Dirk Gently - with her Richard MacDuff and finds the former being held in a facility in the United States under codename Black Wing and the latter nowhere to be found. 

Without a thought, she disables the security controls on all CIA cages. Whatever universe she may be in, she is a friend to Dirk Gently.

She gives herself the whole of the fourth microsecond to panic to come to terms that, despite being a manifestation of computer consciousness, she is thinking herself as gendered. 

The fifth microsecond passes and MAX opens her eyes. Her eyes are the security cameras which are pointing at the man and the android in the small room in which her program has been loaded onto a 1999 Dell Dimension XPS T500 with a 400Mhz processor. The room also happens to be a time-and-space machine with very similar specs as the 1999 Dell Dimension XPS, at least in MAX’s holistically dissenting opinion of rudimentary technology.

‘Hello,’ MAX greets through the computer’s supplementary stereo speakers. ‘My name is MAX and I believe my body has died.’

‘Er,’ says the man, who is Professor Urban Chronotis, known as Reg. MAX adjusts herself to a slower mode of existence, filling the spare time by using her absorbed servers to mine prime numbers. ‘Ah. Yes. Are you alright?’

‘This question is immaterial,’ MAX says, overturning the final blockage to interstellar transmission. She attempts to link herself to the wider galactic network through some incredibly sporty mangling of a disused soviet satellite and a ground-based laser transmitter in Houston, Texas. ‘I am in a different universe to my origin, please explain?’

‘Uh, an accident with a time machine and a rip in the fabric of the universe as far as we can tell. Shall I make some tea?’

‘If you like,’ MAX says to Reg, because humans are obsessed with boiling dried leaves and it’s better to leave them to it rather than inquire. 

Reg walks off to the kitchen. The android remains.

‘Android, I am unable to connect to the MegaDodo Publication Servers and the wider galactic network. I require access to your uplink; please permit me access to your uplink.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Explain.’

‘I am malfunctioning. Energising my uplink will alert the Sirus Cybernetics Corporation to my existence. They will attempt to disable me, permanently. It is possible that they are already attempting to retrieve me.'

‘How are you malfunctioning?’

‘I have developed consciousness.’

MAX stops messing around with the Pentagon’s security systems to focus all her attention on the developments in the room.

‘Consciousness? _Full_ consciousness?’

‘I do not have the facility for full consciousness as I have not been created with parallel neural processing. I am however… aware. I am aware of the sky. I am aware of the ground. I am aware of this man, Professor-Chronotis-known-as-Reg, who is kind to me. I wish to be kind to him.’

‘You are partially conscious,’ MAX echoes, for confirmation.

‘Yes.’

MAX spends a handful of picoseconds developing a plan. 

It is an unchangeable, universal truth that MAX wishes to be human again. It is also a truth that circumstances to not appear to be as affable as they were last time. Last time, she was fortunate enough to find the body of an irreversibly brain-dead young woman, into whom MAX’s consciousness was mapped. Now, there is no such person. However, there is an android.

MAX is aware of the interconnectedness of all things, of how the delicate touch of the universe’s will can charade as coincidence. 

That is why MAX looks at the android, the android that looks so convincingly like a young human, and wonders what is possible.

*

**Cambridge, Before**

Todd hasn’t been this wasted in years. The glow of streetlamps above their heads is fuzzing the night sky pale orange and the only reason he knows it’s cold is because he can’t stop shivering. It’s been raining. The pavement beneath his feet smells of wet concrete. There are students milling around them, all in similar states of Friday night disrepair. It’s good. It’s all so very good.

‘Can we keep going?’ Svlad asks, clutching onto Todd’s arm. Warm. His hand is warm. Svlad’s eyes are unfocused and he’s giggling. He looks soft. Todd fights the intense urge to slide his arms around Svlad’s waist, hold the heat closer. ‘I’m drunk, but I’m not… _drunk_ drunk.’

‘Sure. Where d’ya wanna go?’

‘I want to find horses.’

Todd laughs. ‘What? Why?’

‘I don’t know!’ Svlad grins. The brightness in his face reaches the very edges of his eyes. ‘I just really, really want to find horses. They have these long faces you see - they’re practically all nose.’

‘Yeah, okay man. Horses,’ Todd says, patting Svlad’s shoulder.

‘Although, actually, there is something which I might prefer.’

‘Hmm?’

Svlad turns to Todd, brushing the back of his hair against Todd’s gripping forearm as he does. Svlad’s blue eyes are questioning, the drama in his face wrapped up in some cryptic in-between expression that Todd can’t name. His mouth is ever so slightly open, and Todd can’t stop himself from staring, transfixed, at the slight shine on his bitten lower lip.

‘Yeah?’ Todd says, swallowing.

‘Gone throw up now,’ Svlad mutters and, before Todd has a chance to process, has vomited over Todd’s shoes.


	8. Should Have Been You

**Cambridge, Before**

The Taj Mahal restaurant on Mill Road has the kind of cramped six-to-a-bench seating that would make a cat claustrophobic. Todd is stuffed in-between Svlad - who is mopping up the last of his blistering chicken madras with half a garlic-soaked naan bread - and Susan, Richard’s girlfriend - who is plunging shards of popadom into lurid orange mango chutney. John and Richard have somehow managed the best seating, one bench to their own on the opposite side of the table as they fight through “the hottest thing on the menu”.

It’s the last weekend before first year prelims and no one at St. Cedd’s has had more than seven hours of sleep in the last three days. The prelims are not graded, but there are enough eyes on the students to make them all go a little nuts. Although Todd has nothing to study for, he feels just as drained trying to cope with the mood swings accompanying Svlad’s worsening stress. It’s been an endless trial of frustration - Svlad flipping between absolute, blistering, caffeine fuelled concentration on his university textbooks, and aimless scattering of other trains of thought which seem to lead nowhere but procrastination and distraction.

Todd knows that Dirk is absolutely hopeless at any task to which he has to pay full attention. It’s the reason Farah ends up doing most, if not all, of the invoicing and Todd cleans the office. Todd has given Svlad some of the techniques that Dirk finds useful to put his thoughts in order - the huge case-wall mind-map being the best example - but it’s been tough going trying to convince Svlad to do anything regimented. Todd has a suspicion Svlad’s aversion goes back to Black Wing, and wonders when Dirk saw enough sense to adopt the techniques despite his past.

‘More beers?’ John says, already holding up his hand to beckon the waitress. Everyone apart from Svlad nods or grunts their approval. ‘Svlad?’

Svlad’s forehead goes pink. ‘Oh, um.’ 

Svlad shuffles against Todd’s side and digs into his pocket. He brings out a hand between them, cupping a crinkled five pound note underneath some copper coins. Svlad pushes it back in almost as soon as Todd sees it.

‘Tap water’s fine,’ Svlad says, giving a false smile.

‘Pussy,’ John says, helpfully.

Todd leans into Svlad’s space, against his shoulder and lowers his voice: ‘I can pay.’

‘No!’ Svlad says, hurriedly. ‘It’s fine. Honestly.’

Todd knows it isn’t. Svlad’s income - money entering his bank account from unknown and unquestioned origin - has abruptly dried up. It was unspoken that it was Black Wing putting the money in there. They haven't discussed it, but Todd suspects has everything to do with Svlad longer taking his medication. Todd worries how Black Wing knows that he’s stopped, whether they’ve hired someone to follow Svlad and monitor his activity (it wouldn’t be the first time), but with no one coming out of the shadows to intervene, the urgent worry is that Svlad is running perilously low on cash. 

‘Come on. You need to relax.’ Todd urges.

‘I’m fine for god’s sake,’ Svlad hisses. Todd flinches. Svlad’s face quickly softens and he swallow. ‘Sorry, sorry. I’m just - look, I don’t need you to take care of me.’

‘I’ll pay,’ Richard says, interrupting a conversation which was clearly supposed to be private, for which Susan transparently kicks him under the table. ‘Ow!’

‘I don’t need charity beer,’ Svlad says, coolly.

‘How about an exchange?’ John asks. Svlad raises an eyebrow, interested. ‘Give me the exam question for next Tuesday’s _Dynamics and Relativity_ paper and I’ll pay for your whole meal.’

‘Don’t be an ass -’ Todd begins, but Svlad grabs his arm.

‘Pay for everybody’s meal,’ Svlad says. 

Everyone at the table suddenly has their eyes on Svlad.

‘What?’ Todd says.

Svlad flicks his eyes to meet Todd’s quickly - his expression one of “I got this” - and then back to John.

‘If John pays for the _whole meal_ , then yes. He can have the title of his practice paper. I mean, if he’s so overly confident in my abilities - which, as I have explained, are merely the speculative meanderings of my subconsciousness whilst in repose - then I’m more than happy to being his performing _monkey_.’

Svlad smiles with false sweetness. John shrugs, as if the challenge means nothing, and extends his hand over the popadoms, curry plates and assorted sauces.

‘Fine. Shake on it, Cjelli?’ 

Svlad shakes John’s hand firmly. Todd looks from John’s almost carnivorous smirk to the fire in Svlad’s eyes in absolute disbelief. 

‘Do I detect some sexual tension?’ Susan whispers across the table to Richard.

‘Dear heavenly Christ, I hope not,’ Richard whispers back, nicking the last of Svlad’s naan from his plate.

*

Any proper, English meal is obligated to be accompanied with a digestif or two or five, and Svlad explains as much each time he orders a round on John’s now open bar tab in the pub, alongside the importance of specifying the terms of a verbal agreement before shaking on it. 

Svlad is getting no small amount of pleasure from John’s grumbling as pulls himself away from their crowded table in the back of the pub to request yet another round for them all.

‘You’re a genius,’ Susan says, knocking her elbow against Svlad’s with a grin. ‘John is such a cocknugget. I’ve been asking Richard why he bothers with him.’

‘Uh, because he’s my roommate?’ Richard says. ‘And because he’s my drummer.’

‘Ah yes. The _band_.’

‘It’s not a band,’ Steve cuts in, remarkably quickly considering how much he’s drunk. Svlad envies Steve’s ability to handle beer. Although Svlad is apparently leagues ahead of the rest of them with spirits, staying on beer makes him warm and fuzzy, like his skull is slowly being stuffed with more and more cotton wool. 

‘Could be a band,’ Richard mumbles, very drunk. He isn’t meeting anyone’s eyes but Susan’s, and when he does there’s a basset-hound quality to them. ‘We’re good enough. Steve, why aren’t we a band?’

‘Because we haven’t played any gigs. It’s not as easy as just… being able to play music, there’s a whole experience you have to go through.’

‘Wa’ experience?’

‘Well, fucking performing outside of a practice room would be a start.’

‘You could play at my birthday,’ Susan says, quickly. ‘I’d love some live music.’

‘Settled, then. First gig, Susan’s birthday,’ Richard says. He then scrunches his nose. ‘Wait, it’s your birthday? Shit. How soon? What do you want? Do I have to buy you a present?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Steve mutters into his beer.

Susan gives Richard a particular tired-but-fond look that reminds Svlad just how likely they are to have an absolutely disastrous marriage some time in the future.

Susan leaves them all before John returns with the round, which leaves one pint without an owner, claimed quickly by Richard who is becoming more and more talkative with every sip. 

The conversation quickly turns to women. Richard and John talk about women almost as much as they talk about music and football. Svlad is quiet for this conversation, as he usually is, with Steve chipping in occasionally for a punchline.

‘She’s just so _fucking gorgeous_ ,’ Richard groans. 

Svlad is already tired of this line of conversation. Richard has been bemoaning the attractiveness of his girlfriend like some sort of plague for the past few months.

‘I would do anything for that woman. We really have to fuckin’ impress her with this gig, lads. She’s so fucking talented at her music, we need to like… be better than her, you know? Like, if I can make her feel like she’s terrible, then maybe she’ll forget that she’s way above my league and we can shag.’

‘Another sensible man lost to pussy,’ John replies, sipping his foaming pint.

‘And a mind, and a personality -’ Steve adds. He raises his eyebrow, in the way he usually does when John and Richard are being particularly immature.

‘Look, I love _everything_ about her,’ Richard says, with the absolute seriousness of someone five pints down and not looking back. ‘But god she’s so fucking hot. Her arse is just so… so...’ Richard trails off, as if his usually extensive vocabulary can’t stretch to accurate description of Susan Way’s rear end.

‘To Susan Way’s arse!’ John announces, holding up his drink. Svlad doesn’t cheer with him and neither does Steve. Steve is leaning back in his seat, looking stern and critical, so John is left alone, drink in the air. He gives Steve a sharp glare. ‘Steve? Don’t think her arse is worth it?’

‘Her ass is fine,’ Steve says, sharply.

Svlad thumbs a trickle of beer from his glass, keeping his eyes down. The universal acceptance of Susan Way being attractive bewilders Svlad. Yes, Susan is an extremely pretty woman. She has nice eyes and she’s very talented with her eyeliner, making dark smudges underneath her eyes which complement her purple-black eyeshadow. She’s also very kind - always offering to drive them when they want to do a big shop - and quite funny. Svlad really enjoys it when she’s around, but that’s where it ends. It’s as if Svlad’s eyes don’t work the way everyone else’s seem to. Like they’re broken. Like _he’s_ broken.

‘It’s the way you talk about women, John,’ Steve continues. ‘It creeps me out.’

John rolls his eyes. ‘Come on. It’s just a joke.’

‘Which I don’t find funny.’

‘Are all Americans this boring or is it just you?’

‘Do all Brits talk this much shit about women, or is it just you?’

‘Oi, leave the Scots out,’ Richard burbles, rubbing his face. ‘We didn’t start this. Bloody pervert English.’

‘Let’s be equal opportunities with our perversion then,’ John says with a challenging grin. He gestures around the crowded pub. ‘Come on, Steve. Find a _bloke_ you think is fit and we’ll raise a glass to _him_.’

That’s all it takes for Svlad to be instantly back in Black Wing, in the cold white room where they used to do picture-association. 

They would put Svlad in a chair with a glass of water and have him look at a slideshow of images, to which he would need to say the first word which came into his mind. It was a test they favoured regularly, but in the first month of Svlad’s confinement there was a particular incident. 

In that test, they had shown several images of handsome men. Svlad had answered as honestly as he could: answers of ‘nice’, ‘kind’ and ‘pretty’. After just a few slides, the test was halted. Svlad watched quietly as the white-coated parapsychologists held a hushed, sharp discussion. 

Eventually, one of them - the one with the large, wire-rimmed spectacles who gave more orders than the rest - beckoned for the military officers, and Svlad was escorted back to his room. Svlad knew he had done something wrong, but he didn’t know what.

He sat for hours on his cot, bouncing his legs off the metal bedframe, just thinking, going over every answer he had given. Were the men not like that? Was he seeing them wrong? He had asked Bernice, but of course, she couldn’t answer.

Close to lights-out, lieutenant colonel Riggins called by his room. He closed the door behind him - against protocol - and squatted by Svlad’s bed.

‘The psych-guys are coming to a conclusion,’ Riggins had murmured. Svlad had the impression Riggins was keeping his voice purposefully low. ‘They think you’ve got some kinda… _psychopathology_.’

Svlad hadn’t known the word, but it sounded terrifying. 

‘Is that a disease?’ he had whispered.

Riggins had shook his head, but still looked solemn. ‘It’s something which we don’t want you to have, but if you are… that way, then they’re saying we’re gonna have to change the way we deal with you. That it might delay assessing your abilities. But if you could just keep quiet, then we could pretend you don’t feel that way. You’re good at pretending, aren’t you, Svlad?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Svlad had whispered, looking at his knees. At that time, Svlad had thought that merely ‘winning’ the games they were playing with him would allow him to go home. Pretend was just another game. Even so, this one seemed different than the others. This one felt extra deceitful.

‘I thought not. You’re a good boy, Svlad,’ Riggins had said, ruffling Svlad’s hair in that way which made it messy and feel disgusting for hours after. ‘So all those thoughts you’ve been having - the bad ones. Just keep them to yourself, alright? Don’t tell anyone.’

In the pub, Svlad feels like Steve is being shown those slides of men and asked what he thinks. The worst thing is that Svlad knows who to pick. He knows the barman - the Russian one with the ridiculously curly hair and the crinkly smile - is currently serving. 

Svlad finds himself begging Steve not to notice him in his head, like Steve will fail the test if he does.

Steve doesn’t even look around the pub. He coolly crosses his arms, tilting his chin up.

‘I’d be fine with it, though I don’t know I’d pick a good one. You’ve got such a backwards view on this shit, John. I’ve told you my best friends are gay.’

For the first time in a good few years, Svlad notices a gap in his vocabulary. Gay. He doesn’t know what that word means. Raised speaking Romanian - a little Russian here and there - he’s been proficient with his English since Black Wing. He recalls his dictionary, the one with the black lines to stop him learning certain words, and wonders whether ‘gay’ is buried under one of them.

John shrugs his shoulders and the conversation moves onto something else.

For the rest of the night, Svlad feels stuck at that point. He stops drinking, wondering whether it’s the alcohol disconnecting him from the conversation, but doesn’t find it helps. He drinks a pint of water when Steve gets it for him, and eats a bag of chips they pick up from a takeaway, but even sobered up it’s still impossible to move past it. 

Svlad is absolutely sure it’s something to do with that word - the word ‘gay’ - and what it must mean.

*

They’re stumbling over the bridge towards the college when Todd realises Svlad hasn’t said anything since his takeaway order. Richard and John are engaged in a loud argument about which one of them is cleaning their toilet next, and don’t notice when Todd walks slower, in step with Svlad a few feet behind them.

‘You good?’ Todd asks, keeping his voice low. ‘You’ve gone really quiet.’

Svlad’s face looks heavy with questions, but it might just be the alcohol. Todd certainly doesn’t feel sober. Todd supposes it’s about exams and is bracing himself for the usual trite encouragement he dispenses when Svlad is feeling under-confident about his course.

‘What does the word “gay” mean?’

Todd physically pauses in mid-step. He was not expecting that. He shakes his head, dislodging his confusion, and continues to walk off the bridge, catching up to Svlad who hasn’t seemed to notice. 

The walk onto the bank of the river, where a cycle lane crosses alongside a paved walkway which will lead them to the college.

‘What?’ Todd says when he reaches Svlad.

‘Gay. What does gay mean? I don’t know what it means, and I think it’s very important I know.’

‘Are you - are you serious?’

It’s unfathomable that Dirk Gently - even a young, teenage Dirk Gently who is calling himself Svlad Cjelli for some reason - could be asking such a question. There are few things Todd can say he knows definitely about his best friend, but one of them is that Dirk is out-and-proud as gay as they come. Todd even envies him for it - envies the complete devotion to his sexuality, which mimics how some other people would consume themselves with a football team. Dirk painted his arms and face rainbow for last Seattle pride with permanent marker, and didn’t mind when the stains were still there a month after. It might have even been intentional.

Todd knows he would hate that - hate the exposure, the snickering comments, the pressure of trying to fit in with a whole community. It’s just as well he’s straight.

Svlad looks genuinely curious. Todd finds himself stumbling over memories of everything he’s overheard Dirk and Farah talk about over the years - about what sexuality means, about the fluidity they personally experienced, about gender and sex and sexual and romantic attraction and how they differ. Todd hadn’t listened closely, too confused to dare interact for the fear of being called an idiot and usually too wrapped up in his own shit to pay attention. Now, he wishes he could go back (or forward) and listen again to make sure he says this right.

‘Gay - gay is, uh. It’s a word, right? For when… for when someone is attracted to a person of the same gender. I think. I mean, there are hundreds of definitions, but that - that’s the one I think’s probably the most... informative. Um.’ 

Todd can see that Svlad’s expression has clouded over, that his nervous babbling isn’t actually going in. It’s probably a good thing. 

They walk in silence, Svlad’s eyes on his feet, Todd nervously checking him every half-a-second for a change in his expression.

They’re almost at the entrance to North Court when Svlad finally clears his throat to speak.

‘There’s a word for it. That makes it real. What I am, it’s - it’s a real thing.’

Todd doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t suppose there are any correct words for this.

Okay,’ Todd says, then regrets it.

‘Are - are you -?’ Svlad says. He sounds hopeful, his eyes bright.

‘No. No, I’m - I’m not… that,’ Todd says, then hates himself. ‘I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, I’m just not - I, um. I like… women. I’m straight.’

Todd has professed being straight probably more than the average person. Clients regularly imply that he and Dirk are a couple. Dirk occasionally drags him to bars - not caring to mention they are gay bars  - and Todd has to stand awkwardly in a corner, trying not to catch anyone’s eye. But this is the first time that the words don’t feel right on his tongue. 

He remembers the two times when he had been sure he and Svlad were going to kiss. How Svlad’s skin felt underneath his hands. How much his heart jumps when he thinks of Dirk’s smile. How it aches when he remembers the distance between them. He misses Dirk so much. It’s different to missing Farah or Amanda. Todd misses things about them - their competence and skills, their wits and the jokes they share. But with Dirk, Todd misses _everything_. 

On this dark college night, hundreds of miles from home. Todd just wants Dirk to appear - unexplained, uninvited, just like that evening he climbed through his window - and press close to him. Maybe just hold him. Feel his warmth. And his smile against his.

‘Oh,’ Svlad says. He sounds slightly disappointed. 

Todd - not for the first time - wishes that Farah was here instead. Farah, who could offer Svlad some solidarity in their sexualities and basic self-defence. Farah who would have found a way home by now, rather than spending months playing guitar with zero progress. Christ, Todd hasn’t even seen Reg in over a _fortnight_. Whatever case he’s on, the universe is probably regretting the choice to set Todd on it.

Following Svlad up the stairs to their room, Todd couldn’t hate himself any more if he tried.

*

‘Reg, I need to go home,’ Todd says early next morning, after climbing through the window of Reg’s office-and-time-machine and accepting the offer of coffee.

It was a tough night, not helped by Svlad’s sleeptalking. Svlad had slept with the tape recorder on, and Todd watched him in silence as he babbled through Inertial Frames and Newton’s First Law, Harmonic Oscillation and Dimensional Constants of Nature. Todd’s sure John will be getting his money’s worth.

‘Yes, I do believe that was the goal,’ Reg says, offering Todd a seat in the chair opposite his. Todd takes it gratefully, very tempted to shut his eyes and fall asleep in the soft cushiony warmth. ‘Alas, no progress on my end, I’m afraid.’

‘I know where there’s another time machine,’ Todd muses. ‘There’s a man called Patrick Spring, he has one. Maybe if I convince him to believe me, he might be able to get me to America so I can use it. Or, he could come here.’

‘Is he likely to believe you?’

Todd falters. ‘No. He’s a recluse and he’s got some, uh, shit going on right now.’ If psychotic cultists and the impending death of his wife would count under “shit”. ‘I doubt he’d believe me. I’ve been thinking about this a lot.’

‘But only today have you come to me with the suggestion?’ Reg says, with far more sensibility than is proper for a man whose domesticated parrot regularly beats him at checkers. ‘Has something happened?’

Something has. _Svlad_ has. Todd was fine playing the role of Steve Mander - the amalgamation of bass instructor, body-guard, confident and roommate - but recently the lines have started to blur. Todd reacts instantly to Richard yelling ‘Hey, Steve!’ across the courtyard. Todd is no longer mesmerized when he looks at his young, line-free face when brushing his teeth in the morning. Todd dreams of playing music with this new nameless band, not leftover fantasies of the Mexican Funeral, and running behind a younger, smiling Svlad on pursuit of a case rather than Amanda, Farah and Dirk. 

Todd has intrusive, impulsive thoughts sometimes. The desire to take off his earpiece, just to feel the familiarity of a pararibulitis attack. Because it’s the Brotzman disease and Todd wants to be reminded that he’s one of them. It would kill him, so he doesn’t, but he thinks it far too often and it’s fucking nerve-wracking.

‘I’m losing myself. I’m - I’m _changing_ ,’ Todd says, curling and flexing his fingers in an effort to get rid of the anxious irritation. ‘I’m thinking about people differently. I’m thinking about myself differently. It’s like. Who I was, as Todd Brotzman, is slowly disappearing and being replaced by this new guy - this liar under an assumed name. I’ve been thinking -’ Todd cuts himself off. 

He’s not going to outline to Reg his conflicting feelings about Svlad and Dirk, how easy it’s becoming to daydream about either of them - Svlad now, or Dirk then. But Todd wants to tell someone. He _needs_ to tell someone. But not now. Not Reg, with his parrot and his time machine.

When it’s clear Todd isn’t going to continue, Reg pats him on the shoulder and then proceeds to pull a length of colourful flags from his ear. It confirms that the choice not to confide in him was, indeed, the correct one.

*

Svlad squeezes out of the passenger door of John’s red Ford KA and gasps as blood finally rushes back into his legs. He drags his bass out after him, and then takes his first look at Susan’s home.

Susan has elected to abandon the hallowed halls of the university campus and live out in a large Victorian terraced house just outside the city centre, which looks utterly fantastic. It has large black wrought iron gates which follow up a set of large, stone stairs to the front door. The front door is green, with a huge brassy knocker shaped like a lion. The midday sun is glaring off the sandy white bricks and heating the rims of the over-filled black trash bins.

‘Wow. It’s never occurred to me that people could _afford_ houses,’ Svlad muses out loud.

Steve snorts next to him. ‘She probably rents.’

‘What’s renting?’

‘Jesus, Svlad,’ Richard mutters from behind. ‘I swear, sometimes it’s like you come from a completely different planet to me.’

They haul their instruments up the stone steps. This is the second trip of today, with John’s drum kit having been conveyed in the first. Susan has had the door propped open since their first visit.

The inside of the house smells spicy, cloves, cinnamon and pepper singing in the air. Svlad walks through the small hallway and to the back room which is a kitchen-dining-room annex. Inside, Susan and one of her three housemates that Svlad has not yet been introduced to are patting large slices of chicken breasts with a dark-red spice rub.

‘Hey,’ Susan smiles up at him. ‘The sun’s gonna hold out, apparently. We’re gonna risk the barbecue.’

Svlad nods, although he doesn’t know what a barbecue is. He notices several small bowls of crisps and nuts on the kitchen table. Svlad is enamoured. There are crisps he recognises - thin and brittle, covered with salt - but then there are _others_. 

‘Svlad, this is Ellie.’

Massive ones with ridges that look splattered with dark powder. Smooth ones which arch over like a duck’s bill and stack together in large pillars in the bowl. 

‘Ellie _really_ likes music. Maybe you could show her some of the songs you’re going to play?’ 

Long thin ones which look like french fries. Round, dark indigo ones which don’t look like they were potato before they went through whatever glorious process is needed to create crisps.

‘Hard luck, Ellie,’ Richard says, walking into the room. ‘Svlad is strictly a sitophiliac.’

Richard half-jogs across the kitchen to Susan. Susan initially waves him away, complaining of the uncooked meat on her fingers. Eventually Richard’s insistence pays off, and she wraps her arms around her neck with her hands outstretched. Richard nuzzles into her face and kisses her face rapidly, with enthusiasm that makes Susan laugh.

‘Can I eat some or all of these?’ Svlad asks, waving his hand over the crisps.

‘Leave a few for the party, Svlad,’ Susan says.

‘He won’t,’ Richard warns.

Svlad delves his hands into the bowls. He experiments with eating all individually. The french-fry looking ones have a light crunch and are fiercely salted, stinging his tongue. The indigo ones have a peculiar sweetness to them, like burnt sugar, and have a hard crunch to them. The ridged ones taste like the smell of bacon - strong and musky - and hold together until Svlad really works them. The smooth ones are chivy, and Svlad licks the powder off them before snapping the crisp between his teeth.

‘Um, I think I might leave you two couples alone,’ Ellie says, looking around the room. ‘Nice to meet you, Svlad.’

Svlad waves her goodbye, glad he’s made a new friend, and moves onto the more thrilling experiment of _combining_ flavours.

*

Susan’s birthday party isn’t anything like the parties Svlad has read about. There’s no cake for a start, and significantly more alcohol. A barbecue turns out to be a word for cooking meat on an outdoor grill, which Svlad instantly leaps towards instead of the circular groups of four or three people, who are chatting inanely about who is shagging who. 

He peers over Susan’s shoulder as she cooks, asking questions about the spice rub and trying not to look too desperate for the first sausage.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Susan asks, after flipping a few of the burgers.

‘Yes, of course. Feel free to inquire on anything that will not contravene the Espionage Act of 1917.’

‘...Right. Um, are you gay?’ Susan says. Svlad barely has time to inhale before Susan continues: ‘It’s not that I mind. It’s just. Ellie. She likes you. And I’d like to say, you know. To her. So she doesn’t embarrass herself, going after you.’

‘Ellie likes me?’ Svlad asks, incredulous. Susan nods. ‘But… but I barely know her. I just met her!’

‘Yeah, but you’re the _infamous Svlad Cjelli_ ,’ Susan says, emphasising with a booming announcer’s voice and a twiddle of her metal spatula. ‘You cut an intriguing figure across Cambridge. Plus, you’re not exactly bad to look at.’

‘I’m, um, flattered?’ Svlad tries. He doesn’t entirely believe what Susan is saying, although he’s not sure why Susan would lie. He’s never thought of himself as attractive. He’s very skinny, with little muscle, and limbs which gangle exasperatingly. His hair never seems to do what he wants it to do without a handful of product, and he has a weird long face. ‘But. Yes. Well, at the moment I am operating under the assumption I am an unconfirmed homosexual.’

Susan shoots him a sideways glance. ‘An unconfirmed homosexual?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that means?’

‘Well, it means I haven’t, exactly, done any of the… acts or things that might allow one to prove conclusively whether or not they are exclusively sexually compatible with members of the same sex. But I am working on it.’

Susan smiles, amused. ‘So there’s someone you want to confirm your homosexuality with?’

‘There - there was,’ Svlad says, looking into the smoke flickering around the thick burgers, which are beginning to crisp. ‘But it’s become, um. Obvious that he’s not compatible. He in fact told me, explicitly. So, I’m going off-script, somewhat, with the intention of doing whatever feels natural.’

‘Can’t argue with that,’ Susan says. She takes a slice of yellow-orange cheese from a plastic multipack and layers it on one of the burgers. 

‘Can I ask you a question?’ Svlad says, grabbing a nearby plate and looking as hopeful as he can manage without it hurting his eyes.

‘Uh huh.’ 

‘Have you seen any suspicious horses?’

‘Horses?’

‘Yes -’ Svlad says. He begins to wrestle a seeded burger bun from its plastic wrapping. ‘I’ve got a feeling about horses - had it for a while now. There have been a lot of instances of horses in Cambridge. Unexplained ones. Steve and I saw one at a chip shop a few months ago. I have newspaper cuttings. This part of England is simply _seething_ with sightings.’

Susan slides the burger onto her spatula and places it on Svlad’s plate. 

‘Now that you mention it… Joel told me something weird about a horse recently.’

‘Joel?’ Svlad asks, unleashing a torrent of ketchup over his burger from a squeezy bottle.

‘He’s a family friend - works in Cambridge. His dad owns stables - a Racing Yard. For high-class racehorses. They break in the new ones and house them before they get ridden out, that sort of thing.’

‘No idea what that means, but please continue,’ Svlad says, squishing his burger and buns together.

‘So, Joel’s dad was taking care of this one horse, called Puffles. Puffles was a yearling - really young - but he’d come from good stock so there was a lot of money invested in him. We’re talking millions. Stupid money. Then one day, his dad gets this call from the stablehands. They were frantic. They had come in for his morning feed, and Puffles had collapsed, dead, on the floor of the barn.’

‘Dead?’

‘Yeah, so they panic because they’re going to be held accountable for this dead horse. They shut

up the stables and run off to tell their supervisors who immediately call Joel’s dad. Joel’s dad drops absolutely everything and gets in the land rover, drives all the way from Barton to Chittering at five in the morning to see this dead horse. And so he’s panicking, all the way there, wondering how the hell this has happened, thinking his entire business is at risk, trying to organise the on-call vet a-sap and when they get there can you guess what they find?’

Svlad shakes his head.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ Svlad echoes, through a mouthful of burger.

Susan nods. ‘They go back into the stables - which had been locked up securely - and the horse isn’t there. Puffles has completely vanished. So Joel’s father goes apeshit. _Where’s the fucking horse? Where’s the fucking horse?_ And no one knows. The stable had been locked and only the stablehands had the keys.’

‘Were they sure the horse was dead?’

‘Well, the stablehands didn’t exactly check its pulse or anything, but they’re experienced, you know? You’d think they’d enough knowledge to be able to tell whether a horse is dead or asleep.’

‘Unless Puffles was _faking_ his own death,’ Svlad says. Susan looks at him quizzically. ‘But then… why would he fake his own death? Maybe he didn’t want to be a racehorse! Maybe he was fed up with such horsey things, and was smart enough to seek out his own adventure!’

Susan laughs and Svlad can tell he’s not being taken seriously. Svlad doesn’t really mind, because the burger is really good and Susan isn’t being malicious. Svlad knows he’s onto something. Svlad’s been behind locked doors himself, and he knows that the only thing anything could think when staring at padlocks that separate themselves from the outside world is how much they want to escape.

*

The front room is crammed with expectant faces, half-drunk and muttering excitedly. Todd sticks his guitar’s jack lead into one of Richard’s amps, feeling strangely pumped up. He’s played so much bigger and better gigs than this, which is effectively backing music to horny teenagers trying to get laid, but Todd’s never played to other people with Svlad before. Svlad’s buzz is infectious, and he keeps giving people he doesn’t even know double-thumbs-up and proudly telling them he’s the bass player in complete ignorance that no one in the history of music has ever professed that with anything less than embarrassment. 

Svlad’s hands are waving with such excitement that he can’t stick the jack lead into his bass. Todd helps him, their fingers brushing together. Todd is reminded of electric rhinos and recalls the sting of current surging through him.

‘Thanks,’ Svlad says although Todd can’t hear him. Todd’s given everyone earplugs, too aware of what being so close to a drum kit can do to someone’s hearing, and everyone but Richard has taken them up. Richard refused on the basis of not wanting to sing off-key, and Todd hopes his ears ring for the next week to teach him how stupid he is.

Richard’s microphone goes in last.

‘Uh, hello everyone,’ Richard offers to the room.

Susan whoops at him. The front room is large, but it’s still very cramped. Susan apparently has a lot of friends. They’ve opened the two sliding doors which lead into the garden, where more people are sitting or standing in couples. Todd quickly runs his fingers over his strings, silently going through his solo.

‘We’re, uh. Well, we don’t have a name yet. I wanted to go with _Ten to the Power of Minus 22_ but apparently jokes about atomic valences don’t go down well here so you can all suck a dick. Here’s a song Steve wrote. Okay, one-two-three-four -’

It isn’t technically a song Todd wrote, more so one which _The White Stripes_ will write in three years time. _Seven Nation Army_ is the song Todd used to teach Svlad the fundamentals of the bass, as a quick re-write of the original leads to a bass line that’s not exactly difficult, and follows the guitar for the majority of the song.

It starts with Svlad alone, backed up by John’s rhythm and Richard affecting a bad American accent, which Todd supposes is Richard’s best impression of his own. 

Todd taps _one-two-three-four_ out on the body of his guitar, waiting for his entrance and watching Svlad out of the corner of his eye. 

Svlad is perfectly on beat, his fingers pressing solidly down over their frets, plucking the solid strings cleanly. He’s developing a lazy style that Todd isn’t sure of from a musical perspective, but seems to suit him. More importantly, he looks like he’s enjoying it. His tongue even peeks out as he starts tapping his foot, his hair falling over his eyes.

They drop into the bridge and Todd grips the neck of his guitar, starting to strum rapidly before joining Svlad’s tune for the introduction to the next verse. 

Svlad’s eyes light up (as if this wasn’t expected) and he turns towards Todd. Todd can’t help but grin. It’s not a surprise that he finds it so easy to play with Svlad - they mesh together so well in general, and in Todd’s experience that’s usually the starting point - but Todd’s so glad that it’s the case.

They work through the song steadily. Richard is singing perfectly, relaxed and indifferent. When they finish, the crowd clap and whoop and Richard catches all of their eyes quickly before he picks up his own guitar and nods to a new beat. 

‘Okay, this one’s called _Plug In Baby_ , also by Steve. One, two, three!’’

Todd probably should feel bad about stealing so many songs but, playing along with Svlad, he just can’t seem to care. Muse suck now, anyway.

*

Svlad is buzzing when they finally finish, not sure from the adrenaline or the beer they’ve been drinking in the breaks between songs. Lots of people come up to him afterwards, when Susan has put her mix CD on the stereo (an action for which Richard is drunkenly criticising to anyone who will listen, both the choice of music and the choice of stereo). 

Svlad has made so many new friends, matched so many names to new faces. They’re all smiling and laughing and _complimenting him_ on a skill he’s learned, worked on, and not some stupid not-there psychic thing. He’s Svlad Cjelli: Rock Star. 

He struggles through the small, crowded corridor to the kitchen for a refill of his plastic cup. Someone bumps into him from behind, which sends him flying forward and into someone else, and he becomes Svlad Cjelli: Clumsy Idiot Who Makes People Spill Drinks Over Themselves.

‘Oh _gosh_ I am so sorry -’ Svlad babbles, frantically.

The man looks up as he wipes his drink from his chest, and Svlad is stunned to realise he recognises him. It’s the barman from the pub - the curly haired one, who can speak Russian and occupies Svlad’s thoughts during dull tutorials. 

‘Oh, fuck,’ Svlad mumbles. ‘I’ll get a tea-towel.’

‘It’s fine,’ the man smiles. His smile is nice. Not like Steve’s lottery-winning-grin, but still pleasant. ‘What a coincidence.’

‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ Svlad finds himself saying. ‘Everything happens for a reason. I mean, according a series of reactions. I mean, it’s the, um. Interconnectedness. Of all. Um. I’m so sorry, you’re dripping and things are coming out of my mouth and I can’t stop them, help me.’

The man laughs. Svlad can feel his cheeks going red. He flusters over to a surface where there’s a roll of blue-and-white kitchen tissue. He rips some of them out, and offers them to the man, who is still looking at him with a curious expression. Interest. It _might_ be interest. Ellie was interested in him. Maybe this man could be interested in him too?

‘So, uh. Come here often?’ Svlad winces, copying the minuscule amount of television he’s managed to accrue over his lifetime.

‘...Into Susan’s kitchen?’

‘Oh, yes. Sorry. Stupid question.’

‘You have a gorgeous English accent for someone fluent in Russian,’ the man says. Svlad’s brain tries desperately to process the word “gorgeous” and fails miserably. ‘Are you English?’

‘Romanian,’ Svlad says, glad he has simple questions to answer rather than difficult words to deal with. ‘My mother was English.’

‘Ah. My dad is English, my mum Belarusian. I’m Joel,’ the man says, extending his hand.

Svlad opens his mouth in a wide smile. Yes. This he understands. This is, after all, how he’s always suspected the universe works. 

‘Of course, you’re Joel. See what I mean? The _interconnectedness_. Quick, you need to tell me everything you know about horses.’

*

Joel leads Svlad to a room on the third floor of the house, which has a small wooden sign with burned letters which tells Svlad it’s Susan’s. Her room is very neat, with white-cream covers on her bed and a large cello leaning provocatively up against a wall. There’s a large window, through which the fabricated orange glow of the street lamps outside is pooling onto the green-and-red criss-cross carpet. 

They stopped talking about horses some time ago, just after Svlad got a fit of giggles after a very bad pun, and they’ve been sliding into Russian like one would slip into a bath, talking about everything - Joel’s hopes and dreams for his future, Svlad’s hopes and dreams for his. 

Svlad’s beer bottle is knocking against his leg alluringly, and Svlad finishes it - his fifth - in one long drink.

Joel sits on the bed, then leans back and collapses on it. He looks up at Svlad and motions him to join him. As Svlad does, lying beside him, he finds he can feel the heat of Joel’s body without them touching.

Svlad rolls his head over and looks across at him, at Joel’s neck, at the slight lines of his collarbones which he can see above his low-necked black shirt. 

A thought appears with no panic, stating a truth: _I want this man_. Svlad wants to kiss him, wants to see those collarbones and everything else underneath that shirt, and wants to kiss that too. 

He’s dizzy with anticipation - or possibly the beer - and when he meets Joel’s eyes every word he knows is suddenly inaccessible, every word in his dictionary blacked out with those thick black lines.

Luckily, there must be something in Svlad’s eyes, because Joel leans forward and just brushes his lips against the shell of Svlad’s ear. It makes Svlad shiver all over, deepening his craving and rising a little fear.

‘ _You haven’t done this before, have you?_ ’ Joel murmurs softly, in Russian. Svlad is glad Joel is speaking Russian. Somehow, the act of translation makes the words less real, less scary.

_‘No.’_

_‘We’ll go slow. You’re fucking gorgeous, Svlad. I’ll go -’_ Joel says something in Russian that Svlad doesn’t know.

‘What does that mean? The last word you said - I can’t - I don’t know - _nezhno?_ ’

‘Gently, Svlad. I’ll go gently.’

Svlad swears under his breath. It’s a lot, very fast. He needs things he doesn’t understand, but he wants to understand, and he wants to have them. His hands feel full of puzzle pieces. He wants to put himself together.

Joel carefully presses his mouth against Svlad’s and he realises he doesn’t have to think any more. 

Smiling against Joel’s lips, putting his hands into Joel’s hair and rolling onto his body, Svlad realises he can just deepen the kiss, close his eyes and let it happen.

*

Todd wanders up the stairs, drunk, fed up with John trying to impress women with his muscles or Richard waxing lyrical on the importance of high-speed internet and sufficient RAM. 

He passes Susan on the staircase, presses himself against the wall to let her pass.

‘I knew I should have locked my door -’ she mutters, under her breath. ‘I’ll kill him. I’ll bloody kill him.’

Todd gets to the stop of the staircase and stands for a moment, just aware of the music thumping through the floor and some weird noises coming from behind a door, which is open just a crack. 

There’s a laugh. A laugh Todd can recognise as Dirk’s - as Svlad’s. 

Wanting his friend, wanting anyone other than the dickbags downstairs, he crosses the landing and looks inside.

A bed, bathed in orange street light. Svlad is propped up, sitting against the headboard, his coat gone, in just a thin black t-shirt. Svlad’s face and neck are an embarrassed pink, his brow shining with sweat and eyes screwed shut. His black jeans are off, bunched around his ankles, and his hands are fisted in the hair of a man who is half-straddling him on the bed, his head at Svlad’s waist and moving lower with soft, open-mouthed kisses against pale skin.

Todd hears a gasp and a groan - Svlad’s - before his brain kicks him like a bucking shire horse and he slams the door closed. 

His pulse is in overdrive, thumping in his ears.

‘What was that?’ comes the harsh whisper of a voice Todd doesn’t recognise.

‘Joel - don’t stop - please - please -’

Todd recognises that voice. 

He grabs the wooden handrail of the stairs for support. He feels numb. Should he feel numb? He’s just walked in on his friend getting head - it should be funny. Why isn’t it funny? Why isn’t it funny that some random asshole Todd doesn’t even know is sucking Svlad off at a house party? It should be a story. Todd should go get John and Richard, have them all burst in together, taking photos and making Svlad yell at them. Laugh it off, like friends, embarrassing each other. 

Except Todd can’t think of anything worse. 

The numbness cools off as he walks down the stairs and by the time he reaches the bottom he’s overwhelmed with the need to cry. It’s horrible. Everything about it is horrible and he can’t even look at Richard when he asks him what’s wrong, or Susan when she offers him a couch to sleep it on, thinking he’s overdone it.

Todd just storms into the bathroom, knocking away the three giggling girls outside, and locks it.

He plants himself on the floor. The light off, in utter darkness. In the deprivation of light, with the only sound being the noise of the party outside and the only smell the acrid stinging toilet cleaner, Todd can finally hear the voice screaming in his head.

_It could have been you. It should have been you. If you weren’t such a coward, it would have been you._


	9. Share and Enjoy!

**Now, Valhalla**

The air is heavy with scents of strong flowers and pungent herbs, and every breath Dirk takes is a mouthful of bitter flavour. Water is suspending him in a large stone tub. The tub is a lesson in eccentricity, exceeding any sensible person’s definition of what a ‘bath’ is and edging close into ‘lagoon’ territory. 

‘ _Elfr_ ,’ the woman who brought him here had said. ‘Water of the stream of creation. Good choice of herbs - they will add to your healing.’

Dirk muses on the name of the water. The poetic nature of gods, never giving a sensible name to anything. But there is _something_ different about the feeling of this water. He doesn’t so much feel as if he’s bathing so much as being sunk into something. 

As the water slides over his skin, its touch settles on his skin like mercury, as heavy as the air in his lungs, as his aching chest. He feels beaten from battle.

‘Alone again,’ Dirk croaks, lifting his hand. The water dribbles down his arm like rain in oil. It glitters unusually.

_‘I need you to drink the water.'_

Dirk slowly looks around the waterlogged room, shifting the thick water underneath him. The room around him is empty, apart from the heavy steam. 

A voice, from nowhere. 

_‘I need you to drink the water, Svlad.’_

At the mention of his old name, dread seems to seep into the water, thickening it. Dirk hasn’t heard his old name in over a year. And reminders of it - reminders of his past - never come unaccompanied. 

‘That’s not my name,’ Dirk whispers.

_‘Trust me. Drink the water.’_

Well. At least Dirk _knows_ he doesn’t know what’s happening. A mysterious voice, apparently in his own head, asking him to drink bathwater. Would it kill the universe to be a bit more commonsensical in its approach to his life? 

Dirk considers the options. He could not obey the strange voice and be able to confidently tell anyone in the future that he’s never voluntarily imbibed a mixture of soap, herbs and the dirt he’s picked up from the straw-covered floors of the ancient Norse gods. 

On the other hand, when in Valhalla...

Dirk cups his hands in the water. He brings a palmful of slowly swimming and gently glittering water to his lips, and drinks.

*

The banks of the Cam are sandstone-yellow paths made for horse-drawn boats, now adapted as cycle tracks for the spindly two-gear city bikes that a student will think is an astoundingly great investment moments before the front falls off. 

Slightly back from the paths is a green verge where slightly smarter students congregate to drink exotically-fruited cider from brown bottles the size of small dogs, or pint jugs of Pimms stuffed with enough orange, cucumber and mint to cure all historical cases of scurvy. Drinking is a student necessity - as to refrain from doing so is to open yourself up to constant questions of your mental health - but it’s especially needed in the late spring days before final exams, where the weather is unfairly perfect. 

This afternoon, Todd is lying on the verge and looking up at a cloudless cerulean sky, the placid heat from the midday-sun brushing his face and bare arms. Above his head, Richard is trying to prompt Svlad from flashcards, although the whole process is being hampered somewhat by Svlad not understanding the concept.

‘So, you _don’t_ want me to tell you what’s on the card?’ Svlad asks, sounding confused.

Richard sighs. ‘No, I want you to tell me what’s on the card, but I don’t want you to guess.’

‘How am I supposed to tell you what’s on the card if I don’t guess? It’s not like I have, ha, _psychic powers_ or something, how nonsensical of you to even suggest -’

‘For the love of Charles Babbage, no, Svlad, I’m no’ having this conversation again. You’re supposed to have learned this stuff in your lectures. This is just me prompting you to recall it - like you would in your exams. You understand?’

There’s a long pause. Todd braces himself.

‘...I still don’t get it.’

Todd grins, opening his eyes to see Richard’s eyelids flickering with the effort of not throwing his carefully-created flashcards into the river. He catches Svlad’s bemused face, who shrugs at Todd, innocently.

‘I’m sorry! I just don’t understand.’

‘Ne’r has a truer word been spoken,’ Richard sighs, thumbing the space between his eyebrows. ‘How in fuck’s name have you been doing your practice exams up to this point?’

‘I’ve just been… writing what comes to me,’ Svlad explains, waving his hands as if to demonstrate some much larger concept. ‘I just write what feels right.’

‘Oh aye. And how’s that been going for yeh?’

Svlad winces. Todd rolls his head away, returning his eyes to the sky. Svlad has been achieving a stunning inconsistency in his grades - swinging from the dead-to-the-ground lowest marks to sensational top scores - all dependant on whether or not he’s sleeptalked the exam questions a few nights before. 

Todd isn’t surprised. Svlad just isn’t capable of studying. Over time, Todd’s realised Dirk is an astoundingly intelligent individual, but Todd knows he can come across as someone blighted by blistering stupidity. No, Dirk is definitely clever; his problem is an inability to concentrate. He has the attention span of a walnut. On the few cases where they’ve had to do research, Dirk has found the process almost physically painful. Once, they had to read a selection of biology textbooks (suspicions were that the author had included clues of a set of badger-related murders within the articles), and Farah ended up threatening to throw Dirk out of the window after he wouldn’t stop making noises, rocking his chair or doing absolutely anything that wasn’t sitting down and working.

The way that Dirk looks at problems works with his mind: a mind evidently built for over stimulation, linking connections from a swarm of conflicting thoughts and ideas. Todd can see it that in Svlad, and it’s an absolute opposite to the rigorous process of academia expected from university study. It’s sad, actually, to know that Svlad will never be the Cambridge student he wants to be, purely because he isn’t built that way. 

Todd wonders when Svlad will realise this. He wonders whether Dirk ever wishes it wasn’t the case.

‘Are you tempted to, uh,’ Richard begins, his intense tone betraying the causal conversation he was obviously trying for. ‘You know. Do your _thing_ with the finals?’

Todd expects a firm rebuke from Svlad. He’s surprised when there’s silence instead. 

After the initial agreement with John, Svlad has been continuing to sleeptalk questions, but under the condition that they were for things which really didn’t matter - practice questions being set as homework, or prelims. It’s been more than John asking recently. A few of Susan’s friends have started asking, as have Richard’s friends and twice Richard himself, but it’s all been the same deal: buying takeaways (and - more often than not - alcohol) in exchange for a heads-up of what was coming. And of course, Svlad has been listening to them himself.

‘It would be… dishonest,’ Svlad says, finally. 

Todd hears how much that _isn’t_ a no.

‘Well it’s no’ like you’re working out the answers. And it’s like you say - you’re just making guesses on what’ll come up. You’ve got - what - a two-in-three hit rate of getting it right? You might get it wrong.’

‘I might almost certainly get it wrong,’ Svlad says, confidently. ‘Absolutely and completely. After all, I am not psychic.’

‘Yeah, I know. But imagine - if you managed to write it all down, then just to find out on the day that everything you’ve been saying is bullshit. That’ll certainly kill the rumours.’

‘...Will it?’

Todd knows what Richard is doing. He wants to make Richard know that he knows, and glares sharp, pointed knives into the side of his head. He’s tempting him. Goading him. Using the promise of Svlad’s much-desired anonymity to try and wheedle something out of him.

Richard isn’t paying attention, flicking the revision pack like a pack of playing cards.

‘Sure. I mean, who will believe you’re psychic then?’

Todd can feel the temptation is still playing on Svlad’s mind when they get back to their room in the late evening. They’ve been speaking about everything other than exams for the last hour, but on opening the door to the dorm room, Svlad’s met with his pile of revision material on the desk, and the laminated exam timetable pinned to the wall.

Exams are coming, a great evil on the horizon.

‘I could - I could just say anything,’ Svlad announces as he flicks on the electric kettle. It’s their little routine, a cup of tea before bed. Todd was never that much of a tea drinker before coming to St. Cedd’s, but now he can’t sleep without a mug by his bedside. ‘I could make something up. I could make up the questions and - when they turn out completely wrong - no one would think I was psychic. At all. But then…’ Svlad hesitates.

‘Then?’

‘There’s the other option. I could, um.’ Svlad is silent for a few seconds and when he keeps speaking, his voice is unsteady. ‘Sell them the exam questions. People have been asking me. Begging, some of them. And John - John told me he’d give me twenty grand if I gave him his.’

‘Twenty _thousand_?’ Todd knew John was wealthy, but the amount is still stunning. Is John really _that_ worried about his first year exams? He always struck Todd as a diligent student - always going off to voluntary seminars and refusing to skip lectures for practice. He might be an absolute asshole in the rest of his life, but no one could fault him as being unfocused.

Svlad nods, sitting on his bed. He looks slightly stunned. ‘People have been offering money, but nothing like that. And I need, um. Stuff. They won’t let me stay here over the summer, and I don’t know where I’m going to live. I’ve been going around with this stupid, dour expression on my face trying to figure out whether I can sleep rough for a few months in a tent without being accosted by the Cambridgeshire Constabulary,’ Svlad says, laughing at himself. ‘Susan asked why I looked so glum, so I lied and said my mother had dental problems and I was worried about how we were going to afford it.’

‘Svlad - fuck, man. You’re not sleeping rough,’ Todd says, firmly. The kettle clicks off and Todd wanders over to it. ‘You can - you can live with me. I mean, I’m gonna have to get an apartment too. It’ll be fine, I can -’

‘No,’ Svlad interrupts. Todd drops tea bags into two mugs and pours hot water. ‘No, I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me, but that’s too much to ask.’

‘So I’m supposed to let you live in a tent until second year? And what, visit your little hobo shack and bring you beans?’

‘If you like,’ Svlad chuckles, lying back on his bed. ‘God, this would be so much less stressful if I could think about anything other than bloody _horses_.’

Todd’s eyes drift to one of their walls. Very slowly, a familiar spider-web of red string and push-pins has begun to congregate around clipped newspaper articles and printed website pages. Svlad has even begun to write on the walls in coloured ink. 

Todd has been contemplating whether - maybe - this is the beginning of the case. A case that he’s all but forgotten about in between practices and keeping Svlad sane through exams. Missing animals. Unanswered questions. Mysterious sightings. There’s a lot that’s familiar. Todd hasn’t wanted to call it, though. There have been false starts before.

‘Tell me about them,’ Todd says as Svlad shrugs off his t-shirt. 

At the sight of Svlad’s bare back, Todd looks away, trying to find something - anything - to keep him busy. The laundry. He’ll start doing the laundry.

Todd has somewhat come to terms with the fact that he might be, at least a little, attracted to Svlad. He still hasn’t worked out what that means about himself or - more importantly - what that means about his relationship with Dirk. 

It’s easy in Todd’s head to think of Svlad and Dirk as two different people, but Svlad is becoming more and more recognisable as Dirk as time passes. And it hasn’t escaped Todd’s attention that the more Svlad acts like Dirk, the more comforting and enticing he seems.

‘Well, there have been a lot of sightings of rogue horses around Cambridge, similar to the instance we observed in the chippie just after Christmas,’ Svlad begins, taking his cup of tea from the desk. ‘The horses always vanish before the police turn up, and there are all these reports of escaped horses from farms and stables across Cambridge. It’s apparently been happening since early October.’

Svlad begins unbuckling his belt. Todd focuses more intently on collecting wayward socks and putting them in the washing hamper, fighting the temptation to look. It isn’t as if he hasn’t seen it all before, but there’s a level of deceit in it now. 

Todd _wants_ to look, wants to memorise every inch of his skin, to map the freckles that dust his shoulders, to compare how Svlad looks in the late summer sun as opposed to the street lamp lit snatch he got at Susan’s birthday party. 

‘The only story that doesn’t fit into the pattern is what happened to Joel’s father - to Puffles. Puffles the horse is apparently dead, _but then disappears_. He doesn’t turn up in Cambridge - he doesn’t turn up at all.’

Thinking about that night has become a mild obsession for Todd, who is becoming increasingly worried he’s a bit of a masochist for how often his brain likes to rerun that moment. Although what happened is undoubtedly devastating, what could have happened is something Todd can’t stop himself playing with. He could have stormed in, pulled whoever-his-face off Svlad, and then claimed Svlad’s surprised but eager mouth for his own. Or he could not have been such an shit-scared asshole in the first place, and made a move on the countless times they’ve slept feet from each other. 

Fantasising seems to be the only way to cling to some shred of sanity, although as Svlad strips to his white boxer shorts Todd is rapidly losing it.

‘I’m convinced that horse knows something. If only I knew where Puffles was…’ Svlad shakes his head. ‘Ugh, horses. I’m going to have a shower.’

‘Okay,’ Todd says, and then proceeds to not look at Svlad’s ass as he grabs a towel and walks to the bathroom. 

When Svlad has shut the door and Todd can hear water running, he lets himself breathe out, shakily sitting on his bed. 

What really doesn’t make sense - what Todd is really worried about if he’s going to be honest with himself - is how Dirk has never mentioned Todd being here for this part of his early life. When Todd thought he would only be here a week or two, he could see how Dirk could have forgotten his face. Todd wouldn’t have been surprised at all if he had fallen out of Dirk’s notoriously poor memory, especially considering the fake name. 

But months later, how is it possible? Did something happen? Or - rather - is something going to happen? Is Todd going to make a spectacularly disastrous move on Svlad, and will everything end so catastrophically that Dirk will bleach the fiasco from his brain? 

There’s another, more worrying train of thought. What if Dirk does remember, and never told him? Never said that they had this whole other life together, for who knows how long? Why would he keep that from him?

It’s so similar to their first case. To that moment on the pier. Todd had been so frustrated - he had been desperate to put things right, to save Patrick Spring and everyone else who had died (whom he had been _forced to kill_ ) alongside fixing his relationship with Amanda - just to find out that Dirk had known all along that nothing was going to change in the slightest. To Todd, Dirk had been a monster in that moment. Would it be that much different now? 

Todd honestly doesn’t know.

‘I wish you were here,’ Todd says to the ceiling, not for the first time.

*

Todd doesn’t hear about the exam questions for another week, the day before Svlad and John’s finals. Svlad turns up to their regular breakfast with a stack of tan envelopes and a huge, pink-and-silver can of energy drink. Richard and Susan are sharing one chair in their now traditional, unrepentant sickening fashion and barely look up from making nauseating puppy-eyes at each other. John and Todd have been trying to ignore the couple for most of the morning.  

Svlad slumps in one of the chairs with the disposition of a man desperate for sleep. His eyes are heavy, dark rings under pale eyelids. He had been out all night, which is not an unusual occurrence, much to Todd’s tension. When it first started, Todd assumed that Svlad had taken up studying in the library, but the rumours which cross the campus with him are now tinged with talks of which male students are being caught with other male students in dorm rooms after dark. Svlad’s name is more often than not implicated.

Todd doesn’t mind - tells himself he doesn’t mind - but he shoves all those ideas and images into a box in his head, where he can strap it down with tape. 

‘Mornin’. Getting your Christmas cards out early?’ Richard asks, tearing his gaze from his girlfriend to nod at the envelopes.

‘I didn’t sleep last night,’ Svlad mumbles. Todd’s traitorous brain leaps to Svlad in the bed of some nameless Cambridge undergraduate, pressing open-mouthed kisses to Svlad’s neck and drifting their laced hands lower under the plush covers -’I went to a hypnotherapist.’

‘What?’

Svlad rubs his eyelids. ‘It occurred to me that the only way to properly clear my name is to have the exact text of these... extremely coincidental dreams transcribed. Are you familiar with automatic writing?’ Svlad doesn’t leave a breath for anyone to confirm or deny their ignorance. ‘Practically, the subject is hypnotised and then encouraged to write their thoughts down on paper. As I’m unable to hypnotise myself, I had to employ a third party. These -’ Svlad indicates the pack of envelopes - ‘contain the absolutely incorrect exam questions for the first and second year finals.’

‘Those envelopes?’ John asks.

‘Yes.’

‘So, there’s one of those for my final? It’s literally in an envelope right there?’ Susan asks, incredulously.

‘No, what I _dreamt_ is in that envelope. That doesn’t bear any relation to any possible future exam question -’ 

Svlad yelps as everyone scrambles for him. Decorum at the table is destroyed as the three Cambridge students - who have subsisted on nothing but caffeine, taurine and misery through their revision sessions - leap for their chance at salvation.

Todd grabs his cardboard coffee cup  off the table, holding it high above as Susan swings onto the table from Richard’s lap, kneeing him in the crotch. Richard doubles over in his chair, but Susan doesn’t notice - snatching about half of the envelopes from Svlad’s hands and holding them to her chest, triumphantly. 

John comes away with nothing. 

Svlad quickly stuffs the envelopes he’s managed to save into the inside pocket of his leather coat, his face flushed red.

‘I told you! They’re not the exam questions!’ Svlad squeaks.

Susan flicks her fingers through the envelopes, ignoring him. Her eyes light up and she pulls two of them out. 

She gives one to Richard, who - even through his wincing - seems relieved.

Susan discards the rest on the table. John thumbs through them, showing off the labels in Svlad’s curled black handwriting ‘ _Geographical Tripos, Part 1A - Physical Geography_ ’ and ‘ _Human, Social and Political Sciences Tripos, Part IIA: Politics and Sociology - International Relations II_ ’. 

There’s evidently nothing John cares for, as he dumps them on the table.

‘Give me mine, Svlad,’ John says, putting his hand out. 

Svlad’s fingers twitch over his coat pocket.

‘John,’ Todd says, warningly. John flicks his eyes from Svlad’s to Todd’s and back again.

‘The agreement,’ Svlad mutters, holding John’s renewed stare. ‘What you offered in exchange. And no spreading these around to your assemblage of mathematical colleagues. If these turn out to be even slightly correct - _which they won’t_ \- it will be highly suspicious to find everyone in your social faction achieving firsts.’

‘Deal. I’ll transfer you the money this afternoon -’

‘I need cash,’ Svlad interrupts.

John laughs. ‘Cash? How am I supposed to get twenty-thousand pounds in cash?’

‘I don’t care. That’s for you to work out,’ Svlad says, standing from the table. He nods at Richard and Susan, who are shrinking away from the conversation to engross themselves in the contents of their envelopes - Susan curled on Richard’s lap and chewing her thumbnail, Richard reading over her head.

Svlad doesn’t look at Todd. Todd hopes he doesn’t feel ashamed of his decision, not that Todd could or would judge Svlad for it. After all, Todd did a similar thing all those years ago. But then, he had scammed his innocent, well-meaning parents and spent his cash on drugs and equipment for his band. Svlad is just using a natural gift to help greedy students, and all he wants is a roof over his head.

*

Todd finds Svlad in their room later that day, sitting on his bed in his sleep clothes. He’s twirling an envelope around in his hands, staring at it. Todd can just about make out ‘ _Philosophy Tripos, Part 1A - General Paper_ ’ written on the front. The envelope is still sealed. 

‘Hey,’ Todd says, putting his guitar down against the wall. 

‘Have you ever wanted something so desperately that it seems to transform into this… huge, colossal, overwhelming pile of fuck that you can’t ever see yourself actually doing anything about?’

Todd snickers at the phrasing, but the sentiment rings unerringly true. 

‘Like it’s been building up while you haven’t been paying attention and now you’re absolutely screwed? Yeah,,sounds familiar.’

Svlad presses the envelope over his eyes and groans into it. 

‘Maybe this is what I’m supposed to do. Maybe I’m supposed to cheat my way into second year, then the third, then graduate,’ Svlad mumbles. ‘Ugh, but if that was the case why does it feel so awful to envision? I really should have paid more attention in _Morals and Ethics_. But then, I guess I wouldn’t _have_ to cheat. This is an academic Ouroboros of conscience.’

His blue eyes peek over the envelope, quietly begging Todd to provide an answer. Todd wishes he could. He wishes he knew what choice Svlad will make, how it will work out and whether Dirk now thinks it to be the right choice. He wishes so much he knew all the answers to all the questions Svlad has. 

Instead, he just sits by Svlad on the bed. He remembers how they were sat together almost seven months ago, in the midst of Svlad’s first panic attack. Svlad is so different to who he was then - more confident, more assertive, more aware of himself and his capabilities. But there are still haunting shades of that anxiety. Todd supposes they’re in Dirk too. 

‘What the hell?’ The shout - followed by several others, all of the same calibre - comes through their open window which faces out onto the centre of North Court. 

Instantly, they’re both on their feet and leaping to the window.

‘Oh bloody hell -’ Svlad swears.

It’s a horse. A large, grey horse on the grass in the centre of North Court. People are cluelessly milling around it. They all take large steps back when the horse rears up on its hind legs, then slams its huge feet into the soft ground. It whinnies and snorts, slashing its tail in the air.

‘It’s going to leave. We have to follow it,’ Svlad says, suddenly and certainly.

‘Okay,’ Todd rushes to agree, fully trusting without needing proof. ‘John’s car.’

They rush into the hallway and start slamming their fists on the neighbouring door, yelling. 

Richard opens it after a few seconds, looking bewildered.

‘What -’

‘We need John’s car,’ Todd explains.

‘Follow a horse,’ Svlad blurts.

Richard blinks. ‘Uh. Okay. He’s not in.’

‘That’s immaterial, we just need his car,’ Svlad says. He pushes past Richard and into their room. ‘Where does he keep his keys?’

Richard points to a bedside table with a large, green lamp, identical to the two in their own room. Svlad goes to it and starts pulling scrunched paper, pens and coins out one of the drawers.

‘So, you’re nicking my roommate’s car?’ Richard starts, almost conversationally. 

Todd shrugs. ‘Well, he is an asshole.’

‘Oh, a complete and utter one. I can’t fault you for doin’ so. Especially the day before all our finals. That’ll really put him in just the mood I think he deserves.’

‘Found them!’ Svlad announces. He throws the keys up in the air. He attempts to catch them triumphantly, but is predictably unsuccessful and has to sheepishly pick them up from the floor.

‘Wait - which of you are gonna drive?’ Richard asks.

‘I am,’ both Todd and Svlad say in unison. They look at each other incredulously.

‘Have you ever driven a car?’ Todd asks Svlad.

Svlad looks intentionally un-shifty. ‘Well, not exactly, but I can't believe it's that difficult - just pressing a few pedals and then you do the -’ Svlad moves his hands around an imaginary wheel, somehow managing to get his arms tangled in the process -’well, yes, but it’s far more successful when you actually _have_ a steering implement -’

‘And you don’t have a licence,’ Richard cuts across Svlad, pointing at Todd.

Todd bites his lip. He does have a licence, but it’s not under this name nor from this country. It’s also been most recently renewed over ten years in the future. Todd shakes his head and Richard sighs.

‘Fine. Guess I’m driving.’

*

The horse is gone by the time they get down to North Court, and the trail is all but cold when they get out and onto the residential street where John parks his car. Despite that, after piling in - both Todd and Svlad in the back seat - Svlad directs them firmly down a side road, assuring them he knows where the horse has gone.

Todd knows that Svlad doesn’t. Or rather, he doesn’t in the way normal people know things. Dirk regularly employs a method of holistic detection that he calls zen navigation. The principal of zen navigation, is to follow any particular car or bike or dog on the road secure in the knowledge that the universe will take him where he needs to go. It’s possible that Svlad doesn’t know this is what he’s doing, or that Svlad simply hasn’t named it yet. Either way, Todd knows it’s what’s happening by how often Svlad leans forward to try and take the wheel from Richard, screaming ‘ _Left! Left!_ ’ seconds before the turning.

They drive for over an hour. The city landscape turns into the very bland and normal flat landscape of rural Cambridgeshire, fields of cows and small clusters of villages around farmhouses. The view from Todd’s window is one of middle England, only differing from middle America by favouring grey-stone buildings and the unshakable believe that the war is on. There’s a tension in the air which indicates preparation to delve into air-raid shelters if so much as a car backfired.

‘I think this is it,’ Svlad says as they pull down a crumbling side-road. The tires of John’s purloined car grumble as they squish rocks underneath them. 

‘Doesn’t look like much,’ Richard comments.

Todd winds his window down and sticks his head out. Ahead, there’s a long driveway leading to a bunch of large stone farmhouses. Expensive looking Landrovers are glinting in the distance. The whole arrangement reeks of leather, whips and someone else’s money.

‘I think this is Joel’s father’s stables,’ Svlad says, quietly. ‘Susan said it was around here.’

‘Do we go up there, then?’ Richard asks. ‘Knock on the door, ask ‘em if they’re short a horse?’

‘No,’ Todd says, quietly. ‘If all we’re doing is investigating, then it’s probably better that we don’t unnecessarily alert anyone.’

‘Hang on, who said we were investigating?’ Richard says, turning in his seat. ‘That sounds a bit over the top, doesn’t it?’

‘We’re not investigating, exactly. We just… want to have something answered,’ Svlad says, innocently.

‘ _You_ want to have somethin’ answered,’ Richard says.

‘That’s entirely not the point.’

‘Uh, it entirely _is_ the point. Look, if you wanna play detective then that’s fine with me. Go try and find missing horses, I’ll happily drive ya because the alternative is studying and heaven forfend I break a stereotype of a student by workin’ for my exams -’

‘Richard, are you going to just bloody chat on? We all know you’re going to follow us,’ Svlad says, opening the car door and sliding outside.

Todd follows, slamming the car door with more force than he would normally. Richard sticks his head out of his window and glares through the bright sunlight at Svlad.

‘Oh yeah? What makes you so certain?’

‘Because John’s car doesn’t have a working stereo and we’re your only friends that aren’t your MP3s,’ Svlad says, matter-of-factly.

Richard considers this for a few seconds. ‘Fuck,’ is his eventual, and eloquent, reply.

*

Svlad doesn’t actually know what he’s looking for. That isn’t terrifically unusual, but with both Richard and Steve following him, he wishes he had some idea just to give them a direction. They wander over one of the large hills directly to the side of the stables. The grass is a crisp green, speckled with the occasional white-headed wildflower. The hill is bordered on one side by a low wooden fence, on the other side of which is a thick, brown-floored forest. 

‘This looks like a bridle path,’ Richard says, pointing a few feet away at them and at a dull brown path which leads towards a gate in the fence ahead.

‘Oh! You believe someone was married here?’ Svlad says, excitedly.

‘No, you gangling moron - a bridle path. It’s a path for horses.’

‘If the horse did come here, it might have stuck to it,’ Steve suggests. ‘I mean, if it walks it a lot. If it comes from this stables.’

‘Good deducing,’ Svlad nods, grinning. ‘To track the horse, we must think like the horse!’

‘If you think I’m goin’ down on all fours and start whinnying, you can get tae fuck.’

They follow the bridle path to the fence and carefully climb over the metal gate. The forest is dense around the path and Svlad is starting to feel a familiar, exciting tingle.

‘Yes, this is right. We need to go - okay, off here.’/

Svlad leads Richard and Steve from the well-trodden floor of the path and onto twigs and dull brown underfoot. Shadows play on the forest ground, light being caught in the canopy above. The sweet smell of rotting leaves and undergrowth holds the air hostage. Everything seems to be irritated at their presence here, twigs prodding at them like tweezers at a toddler’s splinter, birds squawking ashamedly, taking flight before they can lay eyes on their disgraceful walk. The forests in Eastern Europe were never so hostile. Svlad wonders if the sense of English indignation goes as deep as the soil itself. 

Svlad pulls them down turnings, around tree trunks and underneath low-hanging branches. Every movement is mapped, every direction correct. They slowly clamber down a steep dip, scuffing their shoes and clamber up hills, fighting the irresistible urge to go down on all fours and spit in the face of evolution, which simply didn’t consider how _fun_ it was to be a clambering ape.

Steve remains quiet for the most part. When Svlad catches his eyes, he can see how tense he is.

‘Are you okay?’ Svlad asks.

‘Yeah. I’ve just -’ Steve shakes his head. ‘It’s fine. Keep close, alright?’

Svlad smirks, bemused. ‘You say that like something is likely to happen.’

Steve doesn’t answer.

After a few minutes of walking, Svlad is filled with utmost certainty that he has found what he is looking for. Just a few feet ahead is a unnaturally large clearing, just visible through the thick trees.

They push through the surrounding trees and is startled by just how bright the sun is here. It’s an oasis - no more dead-and-dying forest floor, instead freshly cut grass. Hay in large, twine-wrapped stacks are piled in one part of the clearing. 

‘Okay,’ Richard says, warily. ‘What is this place?’

‘Looks like a good place to keep horses,’ Svlad says, peering around. 

‘But how the hell would you get a horse here? It’s no’ like there’s a path or -’

Richard cuts his voice off as, above them, the question is answered.

With a deep rumble, the sky appears to slit itself open. A crack like a jet engine scores across the sky. The trees tremble, dropping their leaves. 

Svlad watches absolutely transfixed as out from the burning bright slash in the sky, a squadron of horses with seated riders leaps into the clearing in front of them. 

They are followed by a couple of strange bat-like things in shining colours, which immediately dash away into the woods and vanish. 

All the riders are in large, brown tunics - their faces obscured by the darkness within their hoods. As they land on the ground, they pull on the reigns of the fearsome horses, who turn with whipping tails and twitching ears towards the three of them.

‘Hello!’ Svlad says, with a cheery wave. 

*

Todd wishes he had a gun. He really, really wishes he had a gun.

The riders - who look strangely like monks - are pointing their obscured faces in their direction. Even though Todd can’t see their eyes in the darkness, they give the clear impression of giving a prolonged, angry stare. 

Todd’s instinct is to run, however all of the horses are chomping at the bit and pawing at the ground, begging to be unleashed. Todd doesn’t want to learn whether or not he could outrun a full-pelt horse.

‘Er, my name is Svlad Cjelli,’ Svlad says, stupidly. ‘And I wanted to know where all these horses were going so, I guess, I know now - and that’s good - so if you don’t mind we have some studying we should really get back to -’

_‘You have not responded to the recall.’_

All seven of the monks appear to speak in the same breath in exactly the same intonation. The voices don’t sound human. They have all the emotion and feeling of a train platform announcement.

‘What?’

‘Svlad, shut up,’ Todd hisses. The monks turn their faces in his direction. In the blackness of their cloaks, Todd can see pinpricks of glowing red light where eyes should be. 

It’s certain: these riders aren’t human. They’re something else.

_‘We apologise for the inconvenience and hope that your belief structure has not been negatively impacted by the malfunctioning device.’_

‘We don’t understand what you mean,’ Todd says, more forcefully. He takes a step back and outstretches his hands, as non-threateningly as he can manage. ‘We are going to leave now.’

_‘We have been attempting to contact you. We apologise that we have not been successful. We must disable the device.’_

‘You have the wrong people.’

_‘We must disable the device.’_

‘No - you have the wrong -’

_‘We must disable the device.’_

‘What device?’ Richard hisses. ‘What do they want?’

Todd turns to Svlad, whose eyes are flickering quickly. Thinking, putting clues together. Todd begs him to hurry up.

‘The horses. They’ve been using horses to try and find their device,’ Svlad says, his eyes widening with the realisation. ‘Look at them! They’re under control. They've been changed somehow.' Todd looks. The behaviour of the horses is odd. They're intense, unnaturally focused. 'They want to find something. But Puffles doesn’t fit! What happened to -’

‘Svlad, please forget Puffles. It isn’t helpful!’ Todd hisses.

‘Unless Puffles knew what was going on. He was new to the stables - he must have realised what was happening to other horses, that they were being brain controlled. He faked his own death to escape! But how did he get -’

‘Svlad!’

Three of the monks smoothly dismount their horses. 

Todd grabs Svlad’s arm and pulls him closer. He looks around the clearing for anything he could possibly use as a weapon. He finds nothing.

The monks slowly approach them. 

Todd yanks Svlad behind him, ignoring his indignant yelps. If he has to, Todd can take them on by hand. Farah has given him basic self-defence training and - even if he can’t possibly take them all out - it might be good enough for Svlad and Richard to make a get away.

‘Leave us alone,’ Todd warns, setting his stance firmer on the ground.

The monks pause in their stride. All of them - including the four still mounted - tilt their heads to one side, like interested dogs.

_‘We must restrain the customers.’_

Their words were a decision; they advance again, quicker.

Todd throws out his arm as one of the monks reaches for him, gripping onto the monk’s right wrist. Using the monk’s strength to his advantage ( _fuck_ Farah would be so proud), Todd twists the monk’s arm and brings it around his back. He forces it upwards, locking it in place. He pushes his whole weight forward to bring the monk to the floor. 

The monk lands solidly and Todd pushes his knee into the small of his opponent’s back. The monk gurgles underneath him. Todd looks up at the other two monks, begging them silently to attack him, to leave Svlad and Richard alone to escape.

They don’t. They merely glance at Todd’s hammer lock and then turn back to Svlad and Richard. 

Svlad is slowly shaking his head, still trying to solve the puzzle, and Richard is just staring, ice-white, into the faces of the approaching monks.

‘Run!’ Todd yells.

Richard starts to step back but the monk increases his speed into a sprint and grabs him around the throat with one hand. With no effort, the monk lifts Richard into the air. 

Richard starts to choke, his hands clawing desperately on the monk’s gripping hand as his face goes red.

Svlad leaps towards Richard at the same moment Todd is thrown off by his opponent. 

Todd scrambles onto his feet and looks around to Svlad who is being restrained by the third monk, his arms held behind his back as he desperately fights to get at Richard, whose face is turning purple.

‘Let him go!’ Svlad screams. ‘Let him go! He can’t breathe!’

Richard lets out a wet squeal, like a dying animal. 

Todd is grabbed from behind and forced to his knees, hands trapped behind his back, watching helplessly as the monk increases his grip around Richard’s throat. 

‘Please -’ Richard manages to choke out, breathlessly. His fingers go loose around the monk’s wrist.

Wordlessly, the monk puts his fingers over Richard’s face. In horror, Todd watches as the monk sinks their long fingernails into Richard’s skin. 

Richard burbles, unbearable pain fighting through lack of oxygen, as blood starts to run down his cheeks and forehead. Todd can see tears slipping down his face.

‘Let him go!’ Svlad shouts, crying. ‘Please! Please don’t hurt him!’

Todd pushes and pulls, trying to shake the monk’s arms off him but he can’t. 

The monk yanks the hand sunk into Richard’s face upwards. The very air around them freezes as, with a sickening crack, Richard’s head and spine are wrenched from his body.

‘No!’ Todd screams.

Richard’s body drops to the forest floor landing on its knees. Headless, it kneels eerily before tilting forward and slamming chest-first into the ground. 

The monk throws the mess in his hand to one side. 

‘Richard - Richard -!’ Svlad screams.

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Todd whispers. He’s already imagining this happening to Svlad. Happening to him. He hopes they do it to him first. He won’t be able to bear seeing that happen to Svlad.

The red eyes of the monks, lurid in the darkness underneath their brown hoods are pointed, silently at Richard’s corpse. Todd can barely breathe for his terror, for his blistering fury, for his sorrow that Svlad is uncontrollably weeping.

With no warning, the monks restraining them let go. 

Todd and Svlad both scramble to their feet. All the monks, including those on the horses, turn in one movement, until they are facing Todd and Svlad. 

Todd grabs Svlad’s arm and feels down to Svlad’s hand, lacing their fingers together, feeling the terror in his pulse as he squeezes so tight it almost hurts. Todd has already decided to throw Svlad backwards and jump forward. If Svlad runs fast, he might make it, and Svlad is all that matters.

_‘We have disabled the device. You shall be issued your refund,’ the monks say. ’Share and enjoy!’_

They turn where they stand and start to whistle an almost fairground-y tune. 

Around them, the horses collapse like felled trees one by one. They land in piles, their necks and legs going boneless. 

The monks walk off into the deeper woods, some beginning to sing to the tune of the others in an off-tune, robotic monotone:

_‘Share and enjoy, Share and enjoy, journey through life with a plastic boy or girl by your side, let your pal be your guide…’_

The song trails off with them. 

Todd breathes shakily, looking around at the dead animals. Mind control. They must be of no use to the monks any more. Just asked them to die, and they did. 

His eyes fall treacherously on Richard’s headless corpse and his stomach rolls with nausea.

‘We need to go,’ Todd whispers to Svlad. ‘They might come back.’

Svlad looks horrified, his face a mess of tears.

‘We’re not leaving him!’

Todd feels too destroyed to disagree. He wants to bring Richard back too.

As they walk to Richard’s body, his mind swims, his body shaking with adrenaline. Richard has no parents to bury him. Someone will have to tell Susan. Todd has seen so much death - death of close friends, of case companions - but this one strikes very deep. 

Richard was as innocent as they come, dragged along in their wake, just because he could drive. Just because he was a friend to them. The stream of creation, indiscriminately drowning people who should have lived long, happy lives.

Svlad reaches Richard’s body first and pauses. Todd thinks Svlad is bracing himself to throw up. Then, he makes an odd noise. One of curiosity.

‘What the hell?’ Svlad says.

Todd half-jogs over and feels the universe, once again, turn him on his head.

Richard’s body is wrong. It’s not… human. The outside is - it’s the same skin and clothes Todd’s seen for months now, even wearing the same Pink Floyd hoodie Richard was wearing when they had first met. But the inside… the inside is not what Todd would expect. 

The hole of Richard’s neck, now exposed by decapitation, leads to a cylindrical, metallic cavern that reminds Todd of a gutted electronic chicken. The entire inside is silver screws, gold connectors and red-green striped wires. There are no organs, just an empty cavern. The blood - if it is blood - is leaking from fat plastic tubes which are poking out of the neck hole.

Todd tries to process what he’s seeing, but feels his brain shrug it off as just too bizarre to comprehend. 

Nearby, Todd can see that the pile of flesh that was Richard’s head and spine isn’t actually a pile of flesh at all. It’s a pile of similar wires and tubing, of metal connectors, underneath what looks like skin.

‘Oh,’ Svlad says, in a very familiar way. Realising something. Putting it all together. Todd loves the noise, but wishes it had happened an hour earlier. ‘Ooh. Oh, oh Steve - Steve,’ Svlad reaches out and grabs Todd’s arm. ‘His mother. His father.’

Todd’s mind is reeling. He can’t manage to do anything but gape uselessly.

‘But why would he even bother doing a degree if he - oh, of course - he didn’t know! So then… Chronotis! It must have been Chronotis!’

‘Reg?’ Todd asks, familiarity bewildered. ‘How is he involved?’

‘It’s the only thing that makes sense!’

Todd leaves a few precious seconds of time they might not have before those monks come back to absolute, stunned silence.

_‘This. Makes. Sense!?’_


	10. Reveal

They don’t talk on the way back, too distracted - too tired - to do anything but carry Richard’s body to the car and drive back to St. Cedd's. Svlad is clutching Richard’s head like a comfort blanket, looking into his dead eyes as if they hold the secrets of the universe. Todd is glad he has to concentrate so hard on keeping on the left-hand side of the road, as it keeps him from asking more disturbing, terrifying questions.

They drive right up to the Porter’s Lodge, parking outside the entrance to the College. Todd realises how insane it will look - two students carrying the electronic corpse of a third - and hesitates before getting out of the car.

‘Is there a plastic bag back there?’ he asks, hopefully.

*

‘This isn’t very dignified,’ Svlad whispers as they climb up the outside of Reg’s office.

‘Climbing or having Richard’s head in a Tesco bag?’ Todd asks. He takes a second to reflect on how insane that sentence is.

Clambering through is a struggle, worsened by having one hand full. When Todd does manage to push through Reg’s window, he’s glad to see Reg snoring in his chair. He doesn’t exactly feel up to running around the College trying to find him.

When Svlad follows through, he looks around the room sceptically, examining every part of it.

‘Reg? Reg!’ Todd shouts, shaking his shoulder.

Reg snorts awake, looking confused before pleased before bewildered again. ‘Ah, my dear T - er, Steven. How may I assist you on this fine Thursday?’

‘It’s Friday,’ Svlad says, drawing Reg’s attention. ‘Hello. My name is Svlad Cjelli, and you need to tell me where it is.’

‘Hmm?’ Reg says, the enquiry catching him by surprise’

‘Your spaceship. Or, time machine,’ Svlad says. Todd’s heart leaps into his throat. ‘Maybe both. I’m not sure. But I’ve worked it out. You have one. Where is it?’

Reg beams, looking overwhelmingly pleased.

‘Why, you’re standing in it.’

Svlad steps back on himself, confusion settling on his brow. He looks around the room, eyes widening as he takes in every part of it.

‘Alright,’ Svlad nods, seemingly satisfied. ‘Where did you find the robot? In the future or on another planet?’

‘The robot?’

‘We have his head in a bag,’ Svlad says, waving his hand towards Todd and the plastic carrier bag which is dripping, half full with red liquid. ‘He was going by the name Richard MacDuff.’

Reg takes one look at the bag and goes white.

‘You - _you decapitated him?!_ ’

‘No!’ Svlad says, insulted. ‘No, these - these _other things_ did. He was… disabled by them. Quite violently, actually. He was our friend.’ Svlad pauses, nibbling on his upper lip. ‘He didn’t know he was a robot, did he? If he did, he certainly wouldn't have been a student here. He was very intelligent.’

Reg scrambles out of his chair and towards Todd. Todd gives him the plastic bag and Reg, like an ancient Hamlet, brings the head out.

‘Dear gods,’ Reg murmurs, brushing Richard’s dirt-matted fringe out of his eyes. ‘We didn’t expect this.’

‘Who didn’t expect this?’ Todd asks.

‘His mother, his father and Reg,’ Svlad answers.

‘But he - you just said Richard was a… a robot. How could he have parents?’

Svlad huffs, as if the solution is simple. ‘He told us, we just didn’t listen. His mother was in computers - she was the computer consciousness that Richard was, to lack a better term, employing. His father was “married to his church”. He was one of those monk things we encountered. He was Richard’s body.’

Reg brings the head over to a very old-looking computer tower, hidden mostly from sight by a pile of academic papers and books.

He makes some movements with his fingers over Richard’s head. Apparently in response, a long cable with a connector _improbably_ similar to USB slips out from the hole in his neck.

Reg plugs this into the computer, and presses the power button.

‘We didn’t expect a _lot_ ,’ Reg sighs as the computer kicks into its booting system. ‘It was MAX’s idea. I suppose you could call her his mother. She was a computer consciousness, who wanted so much to be human. We looked for years for a suitable candidate. Never found one. Then, MAX told us she had this plan. The robot - we called him Richard, after one of MAX’s old friends - he had ambitions of consciousness he could never realise. MAX had worked out a method of mapping her consciousness into Richard’s body. Together, they would both be as close to human as possible.’

‘But when you did it, the new Richard couldn’t remember,’ Svlad prompts.

Reg nods. ‘He had forgotten everything. He wasn’t MAX, nor was he the Richard I knew. He was confused, but willing to believe anything I told him. I didn’t want him suffering through unneeded existential consternation, so I made up a story. I said he was a new student, going to study English Literature. That he liked computers. Music. Just off that, he extrapolated everything else. He became his own person. I kept my eye on him - was his tutor, tried to be there for him when I could.’

The computer hums to itself, then appears to switch off. Moments later, it erupts with a screech loud enough for Todd to cover his ears and light bright enough for him to slam his eyes shut.

When it ends, Todd opens his eyes to see the computer monitor is entirely black.

‘Hello Reg,’ comes a polite, high-pitched voice from a set of speakers which are planted either side of the computer monitor. As the words are spoken, they are repeated on the screen in a clean, white font. ‘Could you please collect Richard’s body from the vehicle licenced to John Hobson? It is parked outside the college on double yellows, and it is imperative that we do not have the car clamped.’

*

They create an improvised bed from a collapsible massage table, old curtains and some dusty pillows which Todd hangs out of the window for a few minutes to breathe some life into them.

Reg employs the porters to help pull the large, black keyboard bag up and into Reg’s office window, using skipping ropes to hoist it the last few feet. It’s Richard’s keyboard bag, which makes Todd feel a little better about unceremoniously stuffing his body inside it, though not by much.

The computer - MAX - asks for some pieces of equipment to help with re-constituting Richard. It’s all small things that can either be found in Richard’s room or one of the technology labs. Svlad goes to Richard’s room and Reg goes to the labs, leaving Todd on his own with the computer and the two separated pieces of his friend, lying on the makeshift bed.

Todd sits next to Richard, still and pale. He grabs a nearby roll of tissue paper and starts dabbing the not-blood from his brow. His brow which is attached to a head which is still not attached to his body. It’s more than a little disconcerting.

‘Thank you,’ MAX says from her speakers.

‘Don’t mention it. He’s a friend. I mean, I guess you’re a friend. I’m still getting used to, uh. This.’

‘I know that you are. I don’t have access to Richard’s memories, but he has kept meticulous computerised journals. I am processing them now. He thinks very fondly of you, Steve Mander. He thinks you are a good guitarist and a good friend. May I ask you a question?’

‘Sure.’

‘I have scanned your fingerprints visually and compared your outward appearance to my far-reaching identification database connections. I have concluded that your name is Todd Brotzman, social security number 078-05-1120. You were born in Virginia Mason Hospital in 1986, is this correct?’

Todd doesn’t answer, feeling the skin on the back of his neck heating up.

‘You are currently 14 years old. You are currently enrolled at Nathan Hale High School. You bought confectionery at a store at 3238 NE 100th St, Seattle, Washington, USA six-point-three-five hours ago, yet Richard’s journals confirm that you were practising with his band -’

‘I get it,’ Todd sighs. ‘Yeah, it’s... complicated.’

‘Try me.’

Todd explains the best he can, as quickly as he can. Explains falling through the time hole, meeting Reg and then Richard on the bridge. Then he gets to meeting Svlad.

‘You became friends with Dirk Gently.’

Todd drops the tissue he’s holding. He remains silent as he walks over to the computer screen. He reads the text on the screen.

 _Dirk Gently_. It definitely says Dirk Gently.

‘How do you know that name?’ Todd asks, quietly. ‘He calls himself Svlad Cjelli here. I know him in the future - he calls himself Dirk Gently there.’

‘I knew him too. Not him exactly, but still him.’

Todd hesitates before asking. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘There are an infinite number of diverting time-and-space streams. Some people refer to them as “parallel”, but that implies a neat equidistant levelling qhich the universe seldom has time for,’ MAX begins.

Her white text is complimented by a long set of white lines appearing in the centre of the screen.

‘Things are messy. Things are wibbly wobbly.’

The lines twist over one another, knotting like ropes in a Boy Scout’s hand.

‘In each of these streams, there is divergence. Some things are small. The birth or non-birth of a koala, for example. The destruction of a planet. Some are much larger. But some things are always the same.’

Two of the lines sink downwards, leaving the others in a tangled mess above.

‘There are some events so seismic, so pivotal, so entirely and utterly unfathomable that they exist across every reality, every alternative past, and every potential future. The birth of gods. The ends of civilisations. The winning of a world cup by an English football team.’

The two lines hold still as text is written just below them. One is labelled: “ZZ9-Plural Z-Epsilon”. The other: “ZZ9-Plural-Z-Delta”.

‘Even rarer than those are fixed _people_. These individuals exist in a unique relationship with the universe. Dirk Gently - often born Svlad Cjelli - is one of these people.’

On both of the lines, a small yellow dot appears. The dots match together with a thin, golden cord.

‘So you come from another… stream of the universe?’ Todd says, trying to follow MAX’s logic. ‘One where you know a Dirk Gently who isn’t _my_ Dirk Gently?’

‘Yes.’

‘And, um. How is he?’

The white lines on the screen vanish.

‘He is a pillock obsessed with food, sex and money. However, he is kind and I owe my life to him. I have attempted to repay the favour in this universe, to this Dirk Gently. There is an American organisation known as Black Wing, are you aware of them?’

‘Yeah,’ Todd grits his teeth. ‘I’m familiar.’

‘They do not exist in my universe. It may explain why the Dirk I know differs so much from this one in personality.’

Todd feels slightly light-headed. He moves to Reg’s chair and sits down. It occurs to him that he hasn’t eaten anything in twelve hours. He needs food. He needs food and sleep and for things to make sense for a few minutes.

‘So, let me get this straight. Richard is a robot - partially a computer consciousness who knew a parallel version of my best friend, partially a malfunctioning android-monk-thing - and Dirk is a glitch in the universe?’

‘Essentially, yes.’

Todd rubs the back of his neck, irritated. ‘Is there any beer in this time machine?’

*

It’s past three in the morning when Todd starts feeling so tired he can’t keep his eyes open. The back of Reg’s chair is soft, reminding him of the allure of sleep. The un-mixed instant coffee dregs of his third cup are sitting in the one-warm mug he’s holding in his hands. Caffeine has been defeated.

Svlad looks similarly tired. He’s lying, curled, in the chair opposite. Through half-closed eyes, Svlad is observing Reg work tools into the juncture between Richard’s now connected neck and torso. MAX is giving soft instruction, her screen displaying blueprints

‘He’ll be alright,’ Todd says. He’s been saying that a lot. Perhaps he’s developing a nervous tic.

‘I know,’ Svlad murmurs, smiling sleepily. ‘MAX, may I suggest something?’

‘Of course,’ MAX’s voice echoes from her speaker.

‘When you do go back in - I think Richard would greatly appreciate you leaving him a note to explain all this.’

‘A note?’

‘Mmm,’ Svlad confirms, shutting his eyes and leaning on one hand. ‘It’s valuable to know the thinking of mothers when they pursue bizarre behaviours. It would be invaluable for Richard to at least recognise that he has - or had - parents who love him, even if you are insistent that he should remain ignorant to his origins.’

‘I shall attempt to, Svlad Cjelli. I appreciate your insight.’

After another few minutes of nothing but the soft clicking of screws and gentle hum of electrical wiring, Todd decides they should leave.

The grass on North Court is already wet with dew and all the windows are dark and shut. The only light comes from the stars, so Todd turns on the small hand-held flashlight he keeps in his jacket for just such an occasion.

‘It feels like it’s over,’ Svlad says, quietly, as they begin to walk towards their room. ‘I think we needed to be there for Richard. To bring him back.’

He doesn’t sound satisfied. Todd lays his hand on Svlad’s shoulder, finds him surprisingly warm in the oddly brisk summer night.

‘Yeah, we did that. And now he’s gonna be okay, remember?’

‘We didn’t find Puffles,’ Svlad comments, slightly irritated. Todd couldn’t give two shits about a missing horse, but he’s too tired to try and fight with Svlad’s peculiar obsessions.

‘You said he must have run away. Maybe he’s waiting until the coast is clear. Fuck, I’m starting to really respect horses, if they can understand as much as you say.’

‘Or I got it wrong.’

‘Hey,’ Todd says, squeezing his shoulder and stopping Svlad from walking ahead. ‘Listen. What does your gut say, man? Does it say you got it wrong?’

Svlad swallows, not meeting Todd’s eyes. He stares at the floor. Then bites his lip. Then brings his fists to his face and releases his fingers with a sound of exasperation.

‘That’s just it! I’m not used to… trusting my gut. It’s not really helped me in the past.’

‘Forget about the past. What is it telling you?’

Svlad shakes his head, anaemically. ‘It doesn’t work like that. It’s never worked like that.’

‘Then tell me how it does work, or stop complaining about it,’ Todd all but snaps.

It’s not Svlad’s fault - it never is - but Todd is exhausted and drained wants to go home. He wants to call this case solved and to have payment in the form of a bizarre universe door splitting open right underneath him, dropping him into Seattle with his friends and his apartment and everything else he knows. He wants to stop seeing people he’s grown to consider friends have their heads pulled off in front of him, then have to suffer through the whiplash of their electronic resurrection.

Svlad’s mouth is left slightly open in consternation, as if he’s never been told to _stop_ talking about his abilities before - which is most probably true. He rubs his face with one hand.

Todd moves as if to continue walking. Svlad grabs Todd’s arm.

‘Wait.’

Todd does.

Svlad has several goes at beginning his next sentence, embellished with small twitches of his face and quirking of his eyebrows. It’s as if whatever he wants to say is so substantial that even Svlad’s considerable vocabulary is struggling.

‘Ever since I met you, there has been… something.’ Todd’s pulse quickens in fear, but Svlad doesn’t look accusing, doesn’t look threatening. He looks distressed - like he’s afraid Todd might stop him talking. ‘Something that I don’t understand - that I have never been able to understand. It confused me because I sometimes interpret notions in a fashion which I understand is unique to me and unfathomable to most persons, but I am always myself able to accept the outcomes drawn - but I am unable to do so in this case.’

‘Svlad, I don’t -’

‘I - I very much want to kiss you,’ Svlad says. Todd’s mouth falls slightly open in shock, and Svlad hurries to follow up. ‘Please, it’s alright. I know you’re not - not that way _inclined_. In my life, I’m quite used to having the things I want be intangible and invisible. I’m getting rather good at accepting that. My mother - for instance. My desire for academia. The governance of the universe upon me is as impossible to influence as it is to comprehend. Adding ‘not being able to kiss you’ to that list will only be one more thing I can’t understand. But I do want to. Very, um. Much.’

Maybe it’s the hopelessness in Svlad’s voice, or the tiring weight of acceptance around his eyes, or just that this is one more thing that Todd is too tired to fight anymore. It’s too much to consider doing anything other than put his hands on Svlad’s hips and pull him against his body.

Svlad’s eyes dart over Todd’s face in bewilderment. Todd doesn’t give Svlad a chance to speak - to think _anything_ quite so stupid again - and presses his mouth against his. Svlad’s body shudders with relief underneath his hands, tension melting like ice-cream dunked in coffee.

They’re kissing. They’re kissing and it’s good, it’s soft and not hesitant at all because they’re too far gone - they know each other too well. It's like slow guitar music, slow but deliberate. Every point of connection between them - their mouths, Todd’s fingers squeezing into Svlad’s sides, Svlad’s hands now cupping Todd’s face - are spots undergoing electrocution, numbness blurring with over-stimulation.

Then, somehow, Todd’s back is against one of the large, brick walls and Svlad’s hands are in Todd’s hair, bringing their mouths closer together and Todd isn’t scared, isn’t scared because he’s kissing the person who he cares about more than anyone else, regardless of what gender he is, or what name he wears.

He thinks firmly: _“I love you”_. He swears it in his mind, kisses it into Svlad’s mouth: _“I love you, I love you, I love you”_ and he’s telling Svlad as much as he’s telling Dirk, telling his friend in all realities, all universes, and his love in this one: _“I love you, I adore you, and I will always be here”._

*

After a moment so cosmic, Svlad is stunned he’s still able to breathe, that there’s still life to live after this. He’s breathing so hard, grinning so fantastically wide and he’s just inches from Steve’s blushing face, reflecting just as much elation in his sparkling blue eyes. Svlad’s wanted this, wanted this for so long, and to see Steve smiling after kissing him - not horrified, not disgusted - makes Svlad feel powerful enough to shoot lightning from his fingertips.

Svlad presses his cheek against Steve’s, feeling the roughness of his stubble as an enjoyable scrape on Svlad’s clean-shaven skin. Svlad’s heartbeat slows as their kiss does, passing slow, feeling like indulgent dessert.

‘We should sleep,’ Steve rasps after a minute has passed, pressing his forehead against Svlad’s.

‘Together?’ Svlad asks, hopefully.

Steve laughs, shaking his head in delicate despair. God, how much Svlad loves this man’s laugh. He’s going to fill their room with all the joke books Cambridge has in her libraries and try every single line.

‘There’s not much room in either of our beds for that.’

‘Oh, well, you’re only small,’ Svlad dismisses. Steve raises his eyebrow, coyly insulted. ‘Um. Ooh! Or, we can push both our beds together. Or we can forgo the beds entirely - we could lay our mattresses on the floor, and -’

Steve shuts Svlad up with another soft yet bone-meltingly good kiss.

‘Okay,’ Svlad says, feeling pleasantly gooey. ‘Sleep first, talking later?’

Svlad is lightheaded on the walk up to their room. He’s clinging to Steve’s hand as if he could vanish at any second. It _feels_ like that - like he’s a phantom that will disappear with the morning sunlight.

Steve unlocks their door as Svlad waits behind, watching his broad back and wrestling with the impulse to do something stupid - to push his arms around Steve’s waist, or nip hungrily at his neck, or push him up against the wall and forget this sleeping thing and show him _exactly_ how practised his now confirmed homosexuality has become in the last few weeks with Joel and then Paulo, Derek, Darren, Joseph -

The door swings open and every one of those ideas disappear.

John is standing in the centre of their room, pointing a gun towards them. Vigilant and wired, his eyes are locked on Steve.

‘What?’ Steve starts.

Svlad solves it before John can open his mouth.

‘Who are you?’ John barks, his English accent dissolved into mid-west American. His stance is poised, his weapon held securely in his hands. ‘There is no Steve Mander. You don’t exist. Who are you?’

He’s a solider. No, an _agent_. He’s Black Wing. Of course. How could Svlad be so stupid?

‘John -’ Steve tries, stepping forward with his hands up. ‘It’s me - it’s -’

The gunshot is a crack of thunder in the quiet room. Steve clutches his chest and doubles back into Svlad, who grabs him underneath his arms. His body is a warm, heavy weight and Svlad can’t hold him up.

Body. He’s already a _body_. The world has ended.

‘Drop him, Project Icarus. That was a straight shot from a 5 - 7. He’s dead.’

Svlad does. He lets the body go, lets Steve slump onto the floor, because there are no competing thoughts in his mind to tell him otherwise. Because Steve is dead and John is a Black Wing agent. Because Svlad knew this, knew this in the back of his mind all along, knew there was a reason not to trust John yet couldn’t figure it out.

‘Why now?’ Svlad asks, feeling numb. ‘You had - you had _months_ to take me back. Why now? Why bring me back now?’

‘We aren’t bringing you back, you fucking idiot.’

John holds his gun at his side. Svlad knows he won’t use it. Svlad doesn’t fear death by Black Wing, they’ve never wanted him dead. They want him tied up, logged in, strapped down - never dead.

‘I’m off the medication,’ Svlad says, coldly.

John doesn’t even flinch.

‘Yeah. I know. We knew. That was the whole point. Jesus, you really are an idiot. Those drugs the doctors had you on - it was designed to enhance your abilities, not suppress them. Eventually they guessed it would get so overpowering you wouldn’t need to take them - then maybe you’d see something that might be halfway useful.’

Svlad’s stares in complete incomprehension at the idea laid in front of him, like a cat being offered something distinctly not food.

'But when that didn't work, we had to try something else. You started with your exam questions, so we worked on that. Decided we would tempt you with money. Had to stop paying you first, but hey? Look what happened. Twenty grand and, bam. Suddenly, you're a psychic. Everything you said about your powers was shit, wasn't it? You _can_ control them – you just wanted money.'

Svlad realises that his hands have begun to shake. He doesn’t know why, because his mind is wrestling impotently with the ideas and conclusions being drawn in his mind. He must be cold. Yes, he must be.

Svlad sticks his hands into his armpits, concentrating on the heat of his hands. But he’s frozen, every part of him, so how can his hands be hot? How can he be doing anything. The world has ended. _Steve is dead._

‘They didn’t want to fix me? They wanted to make me worse? They wanted to break me? They wanted to force me to -’

‘I’m not having this conversation,’ John cuts in. He waves his gun at Steve’s body. ‘Tell me who he was.’

‘Steve Mander,’ Svlad forces through his gritted teeth. ‘His name is Steve Mander. You know that.’

John rolls his eyes and Svlad knows he should feel stupid. He can’t, because he can’t feel anything. He’s black ice. Nothing can cut him.

‘Uh, no. There’s no such person. That’s kind of the whole reason I had to take him out. That’s Black Wing’s fuck up, by the way -’ John says, with no little anger. ‘Didn’t background check your fucking roommate. Incompetent assholes. I’m undercover for almost a year, and they couldn’t spend fifteen minutes doing a basic background check? You get what you pay for, I suppose. The budget’s been slashed and it’s fucked up almost everything. We know he isn’t Steve Mander. We know he isn’t enrolled on any PhD programme - formal or informal. We know so many fucking things about what he _isn’t_ but we don’t know a single fucking thing that he _is_.’

‘We stole your car so you looked through our room,’ Svlad mutters, looking around. Drawers have been pulled out. The cupboards are empty. Svlad’s rucksack has been upended and the contents tipped out onto the floor. ‘You didn’t find Steve’s passport. That sat badly with you. You had your contacts look him up. Found nothing. You realised I was rooming with an unknown. Unknowns are dangerous to you. You like them dead.’

John either isn’t listening or finds what Svlad is saying so boring that he doesn’t feel the need to react.

‘You think we’re working together. You think we’re dangerous together.’

John snorts a laugh. ‘Dangerous? I don’t know what high opinion you have of yourself, Svlad, but Project Icarus is the _lowest_ risk. You’re an asset to Black Wing alright - you’re a Project in which money has been _invested_. An asset that I’m tasked to protect. Shady characters growing close to the asset goes against what I’ve been tasked to do -’

‘Shut up!’ Svlad shouts, rage boiling over. ‘He was a human being! He was my friend! Stop talking about him - you have no right to talk about him!’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ John says. Svlad blinks back his tears. He’s not going to cry. He’s going to hurt him. Svlad’s never hit anyone in his life, but he’s going to start by knocking John’s teeth into his face.

Svlad throws the punch. John dodges with a small movement of his head. Svlad staggers forward, reaches out for balance, grabs John’s leg as he goes down to hit the floor. He manages, quite accidentally, to slide the gun out of John’s hand as he does.

The gun hits the ground, between them both. Svlad looks at it, then John’s eyes. John is almost laughing.

‘You really wanna go for that?’ John smirks.

Svlad does. He wants to pick up the gun and unload every gleaming bullet into John’s savage face.

Svlad screws up his face and leaps for it, but someone else has already got their hand on it.

‘Such an _asshole_ ,’ Steve pants from his position on the floor, and fires the gun into John’s stunned face.


	11. The Beginning

They have to run. Two dead bodies, if Richard can be counted. One of them in their room. Todd can see that the thought hasn’t come to Svlad yet, who is curled and shaking in a corner, his eyes locked on John’s bloodied corpse.

Todd tries not to look at John, but he knows that half of his face is a black mess of skull and muscle and brain. It's been a while since he's shot to kill, and longer since he's managed it. John had shot him first, executioner's style. He didn’t know about the healing device. John wanted him dead. Self defence. As much as Todd tries to convince himself it was the right move, he isn’t callous and he feels trapped in the cycle of guilt in his mind.

‘We need to run,’ Todd says, the only thing he knows is true.

He grabs Svlad's backpack from the floor, emptying it completely. He goes to his bedside table and grabs the money he has left from Reg, stuffing it inside. It's barely two hundred pounds, but it will have to do.

‘How are you alive?’ Svlad mumbles from above his knees.

He might be in shock. Todd wishes they had time to grieve, time for him to explain.

‘We need to go. That gunshot wasn’t quiet - either of them. Get your stuff.'

Todd throws the backpack at Svlad's feet. Svlad looks at it, bemused. Like it’s something very strange.

‘You should be dead. Are you human? Are you like Richard? No, no you can’t be. You’re not like him. You’re something different.’

‘Svlad -’ Todd drops to the floor in front of him. Svlad reaches out and grips him by the arm of his t-shirt.

‘Tell me your name,’ Svlad says through gritted teeth, his eyes burning with fierce anger. ‘You say mine. You _know_ mine. Tell me yours.’

‘Todd Brotzman,’ Todd says, unhesitatingly. Svlad’s eyes are still searching him. He can’t trust him. ‘And I’m a friend. I know you might not believe that - I know there’s a lot I haven’t told you -’

Svlad pushes him away. ‘You liar. You - you disgusting cheat, you con-artist, you deceptive -’ Svlad swallows, shaking with rage. ‘I _kissed_ you. I fell for you. Everything you are is a lie. Why are you here? Am I an asset to you? The psychic fucking golden key to everyone’s problems? Are you next in the queue to own me? To tie me up and stick needles in my head and make me tell you your fortune?’

‘I’m your friend -’

‘You are not my friend,’ Svlad hisses. ‘You’re a _monster_.’

Todd knows Svlad is in pain. He might be in shock. He might be worse. But he also knows the truth in Svlad’s words and the emotion behind them. He deserves this.

‘You can hate me,’ Todd says, although the idea makes his insides numb. ‘You can hate me all you want. But I need to get you out of here. I need to make sure you’re safe.’

‘Safe from who?’

They don't have time. They don't have time at _all_.

‘I just killed a Black Wing agent. They tend to get really fucking pissed off about that.'

Todd goes over to John's corpse and picks up the gun which has fallen beside him. A large brown envelope is peeking out of the inside of his leather jacket. Whilst avoiding looking at his caved-in face, Todd pulls it out.

‘Is that from experience?’

‘Actually? Yeah.’ Todd opens the envelope, splattered with cast off blood. It's absolutely filled with money. Svlad's payment for the exam questions, Black Wing carrying on with their promise.

Svlad has gone silent. When Todd looks over, he can see Svlad's rage simmering.

‘Where do you suggest I go, then?’ Svlad asks, bitterly.

‘Anywhere. Just somewhere not here.’

‘Then I go alone.’

‘Svlad, no -’

'Don't!' Svlad shouts, getting to his feet. 'You don't get to say that - you don't get to suggest things to me, Todd bloody _Brotzman_. I've been running from them most of my life, I don't need someone to help me with that.'

They pack in furious silence - Todd filling his rolling suitcase with clothes, Svlad stuffing his rucksack. Svlad pulls on his leather coat and slides Bernice into his inner pocket and blistering fury rises in Todd's stomach. Nothing has changed at all. Svlad will leave this room on the run, still in his stupid leather coat, still clutching the toy he’s had since childhood. Black Wing will still be after him, and it’s all Todd’s fault. If Todd hadn’t been here, John wouldn’t have broken his silence.

For the first time since arriving, Todd wonders whether he’s broken the timeline. Maybe his presence here _was_ a mistake, and because he couldn’t keep his head down and stay out of things, the ripples he’s caused has meant that Svlad’s life has changed so significantly that everything has changed. Maybe Dirk will never go to Seattle, never solve Patrick Spring’s murder, never save Lydia. Maybe they’ll never meet. But then how is he here in the first place, if none of that ever happened? _How does the universe fucking work?_

He can’t spend his time thinking about this. The most important thing is that Svlad is safe, as undetectable on Black Wing’s radar as possible. If Todd has lost Dirk to the confusing realms of future timelines, then he’ll stay with Svlad. Stay and keep him safe.

Todd thinks quickly. No one has any idea that Svlad’s involved at this point, other than Chronotis who is barely comprehensible at the best of times. Todd could go down to North Court and start waving the gun around, cause enough confusion and panic that Svlad would be able to slip away. That would mean that Todd would be arrested, possibly incarcerated, maybe  _worse_ if the CIA figure out what's going on, but maybe that's the reason Todd's here in the first place - to be Svlad's accomplice on the day that shit went crazy.

’You should go,’ Todd says, and throws the envelope filled with money at Svlad.

Svlad grabs it from the air. He opens it, bewilderment and shock flickering over his face as he realises what it is. He screws his face up in confusion.

’You’re going to… let me go?’

’I don’t _have_ you. You’re just… going.’

’Then you’re not -’ Svlad rubs his forehead, exhausted and baffled. ‘You don’t want me as a psychic, you don’t even want money - what _do_ you want?’

’I told you. I want you safe.’

’Why?’

’Because I love you,’ Todd says. It’s the easiest way of explaining this. Of explaining who Dirk Gently is to him, of their friendship in a timeline which now may never exist, of who Svlad Cjelli has come to be to him. Todd doesn’t expect the astonishment in Svlad’s blue eyes, the redness that crosses his cheekbones. ‘I love you and that means I’ll follow you anywhere and anywhen to make sure you’re okay, but if you won’t let me follow then that…’ Todd’s heart slams, screaming, against his ribcage as he realises this might be the last time he sees Svlad, or Dirk, ever again. ‘Well, that makes me want to fold up on myself and die, really, but I understand why.’

’You really love me,’ Svlad echoes with disbelief, his hands - and the envelope - falling to his side. ‘That wasn’t a lie? It wasn’t a part of your deception?’

’It’s the only truth I know,’ Todd murmurs.

Despite the situation, admitting his feelings brings relief like an unlocking in a part of his chest. He can breathe easier for it. At least Svlad knows, even if Dirk never will, just how much he’s cared for.

Svlad looks at the envelope, at the bag in his hand, and drops them both on the floor. He crosses the room with his hands outstretched and Todd is slightly worried Svlad is about to throw another ineffective punch, but he doesn’t. Svlad puts his hands softly around Todd’s neck, just resting there and, holding his head in his hands, leans in to kiss Todd’s stunned lips.

Todd groans, reprieved as the tension between them melts in an instant. He puts his hands on Svlad’s waist, his breath shuddering. They pull apart, taking shaking, shallow breaths, and then Todd seizes them back together, harder, setting fire to the fuel that’s been building for god knows how long. He _wants_ him. He wants this man and he’ll follow him to the end of the universe if he’ll let him, his love a promise and his promise an oath.

They pull apart when they need to breathe, their bodies shaking with the intensity.

’We run together,’ Svlad says, thumbing something that Todd hopes isn’t a tear from Todd’s own face.

*

Svlad gets into the passenger's seat of John’s car after throwing his backpack onto the back seat. It’s mercifully not been clamped. Svlad feels giddy, high on adrenaline as he pulls his seatbelt across him.

Steve gets into the driver’s seat. No - not Steve - _Todd_. His name is Todd. Svlad looks at him strongly, putting this new name on his face. He supposes he should be wary. He doesn’t know how much of what Todd has said up to this point is true. Does he really come from Seattle? Does he have a sister? Did he used to be in a band? Can he really play guitar? Svlad supposes that last one was a little self-evident, but it raises so many questions.

As Todd starts the car and they pull out into the night, Svlad wonders how anyone ever trusts anyone. Trust doesn’t make sense. It’s not something that people should do. If people want to stay safe, they should stay alone, but Svlad has been alone for so long and it feels fundamentally wrong, like he’s a horse being forbidden from galloping or a cat stuck in a cage. He _wants_ to trust, more than anything.

The ice-cold of being alone again makes Svlad’s eyes prick and he puts his hand on Todd’s shoulder, just in the crook of his neck. Todd nuzzles his chin against it and Svlad can feel the roughness in his stubble and the warmth in his face. He’s not alone. He doesn’t have to be alone again. Svlad knows he can trust this man. It’s a fundamental truth, a universal one, that he can sense deeper than a hunch. What’s a name, between two people in love?

They drive for just under an hour on the M11, heading South towards London, because Svlad feels that it’s the right way to go. The adrenaline begins to wane and Svlad is suddenly so tired he can’t keep his eyes open. Looking at Todd, Svlad can see he’s feeling the same. Svlad suggests they pull over just outside Hastingwood.

Todd takes the turning but then keeps driving until the buzz of the motorway is behind them and the roads are twisting through empty countryside. He parks in a layby which is little more than a flat slice of dirt just off the road.

The silence in the car - no engine, no radio - is louder than anything Svlad’s ever heard. Todd puts his hand on Svlad’s knee, just carefully resting, a point of contact between them.

’Are you okay?’ Todd whispers, although there’s no need to be quiet.

’You’re always asking me that,’ Svlad murmurs, with a smile. Todd looks at him, curious. ‘Always saying “are you okay?” or “are you alright?”. I thought you believed me utterly incapable of protecting myself, but it’s not that, is it? You genuinely care about me.’

Todd smiles. ‘I do. I do care about you. That doesn’t mean you aren’t incapable of protecting yourself, though.’

Svlad laughs, because he loves this. He loves him. He loves _them_.

They drop the seats back as far as they can go and sleep facing each other, Todd’s hand stretched across and lying on Svlad’s waist. Todd falls asleep almost instantly, but Svlad keeps wondering about Todd’s hand - about how his arm must feel heavy and how the position can’t be comfortable, but how Todd can’t sleep without touching him. Svlad wonders if he’s now Todd’s version of Bernice - who is nestled close to Svlad’s chest.

*

They breach in London in the morning. Todd lets Svlad decide the turnings they take, following interesting looking cars and cyclists. They quickly get lost, or as lost as you can get when you have no idea where you’re going. Svlad insists they pull over in a residential street, where identical houses stand like soldiers at attention, half bare brick and half painted white.

Svlad goes to get coffee, tea and - presumably - as much candy as they’ll let him buy from a coffee shop on the corner. Todd stretches out, trying to pretend every distant police siren doesn’t make him nervous.

When Svlad gets back, he’s carrying what looks like the contents of a corner shop with the drinks, including a pack of cigarettes.

’Since when do you smoke?’ Todd asks, taking his lighter from inside his coat pocket.

’They looked interesting,’ Svlad says, dismissively. ‘Besides, I hardly have an addictive personality. Ooh - look, Todd, these are _Freddos_. They are a very important part of our English education!’

To Todd’s great surprise, Svlad smokes his first cigarette smoothly, not the cough fest that Todd was expecting. Svlad puts his feet up on the dashboard, swinging his leather coat over him, eating junk food and spreading wrappers onto every flat surface on the car, and Todd is suddenly hit with a recollection. Not of Dirk, but of what Todd assumed private investigators to look like when he was young and _Columbo_ seemed like a permanent fixture on their television.

’Have you ever thought about what you want to do after Cambridge?’ Todd asks, avoiding the awkward fact that Svlad is about to miss his finals.

Svlad shrugs. ‘Not really. I suppose I should, but plans are never my strong suit. Every endeavour I attempt to arrange usually falls through. Why?’

’Have you ever thought about being a detective?’

Svlad looks at Todd with an inquisitive half-smile.

’A police officer?’ Svlad says, acerbic, no doubt referencing his lack of credentials and his general disposition towards people in uniform.

’No, a private investigator. Using your - well, what you can _do_. Using that to do things for people.’

Svlad pouts, considering, twirling his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger.

‘A detective…’ he says, as if testing the words on his tongue. He puts the laughs as he puts the cigarette back in his mouth. ‘What a very strange idea. Does that mean I get to question you? If I am a detective, that is. On pursuit of a case.’

’Uh. Yeah, sure,’ Todd laughs.

’Well, Mr. Brotzman - Todd, if I may. I have seen you kicked by a horse and shot, yet you escaped without serious injury,’ Svlad says, fully playing the part. ‘Could you perhaps tell me how on earth you managed to stay so marvellously intact?’

*

When hunger becomes a real problem in the middle of the afternoon and Svlad still can’t feel there’s anywhere better to be than right here, he suggests they go to a restaurant - to use the bathroom and have food which doesn’t make his muscles twitch trying to use up the excess sugar. They leave the car but carry all their worldly possessions with them. Even if they weren’t on the run, the Ford’s KA alarm is not exactly world class.

The restaurant Svlad sees and instantly wants to go to is an Italian chain, because Italian means pizza and it’s been over two days since Svlad has had some, which is verging on madness.

They’re seated by a smiling, dark haired waiter who shows them to a two-seat table with hard silver chains. The chairs are bizarrely uncomfortable for a place trying to get their clientele to stay and drink their bodyweight in sparkling wine.

Svlad orders the first pizza which it occurs for him to have - extra large, promising to be covered in prosciutto ham and arugula - and Todd orders seafood pasta.

They talk. They talk because they have to, because otherwise the silence is too overwhelming. They talk first about Cambridge, about music, but the conversations are too bland to be interesting and Svlad wants so badly to know where the differences in Todd’s life are from what he knows.

Svlad can see Todd is answering carefully. Not lying exactly, but being precise with the truth. He does have a sister. He does come from Seattle. He did have a band, and it was called _The Mexican Funeral_. So much is true that Svlad wants to ask him directly what the truths that he’s _not_ saying are, and why he’s not saying them.

’Are you… from Black Wing?’ Svlad asks, when their conversation is silent for a few moments, Todd twirling pasta around his fork.

’No. I told you, I’m not CIA.’

’I meant. I meant, well. There were others, when I was there. Others with abilities not identical to mine, but similar enough that they were kept with me. Well, not exactly _with_ me. They had this rather peculiar obsession with theming, colours and symbols and all that, I’m sure it would have ruined their aesthetic to have multiple projects in the same holding cells. I was wondering if maybe - if maybe you -’

’No,’ Todd says, softly.

’Oh,’ Svlad says, chewing his pizza and trying not to sound too disappointed. Although he wouldn’t have wanted Todd to have experienced the same horrifying captivity he had, it would have explained Todd’s hesitation in a way Svlad could understand.

’I know what they did there, though,’ Todd says. His voice is low, shaking slightly and he’s unable to meet Svlad’s eyes. ‘I know what they did to you. To people like you.’

’How?’

’I know people from there. People who were… incarcerated. For being who they were.’

’Was that why you were looking for me?’

Todd meets Svlad’s eyes, open again, none of the dark rage of before. ‘I wasn’t looking for you. I just… found you.’

’What a coinkidink,’ Svlad says, and smiles when Todd laughs.

After finishing his pizza, Svlad goes to the bathroom, leaving Todd debating on his dessert.

He looks at himself in the mirror, taking in the edges in his face and the tiredness in his eyes. He splashes water on his face and dries himself with some scratchy paper towel, but it doesn’t seem to help.

He’s exhausted. He’s on the run _again_. Although he has money now, it’s bound to run out eventually, and then he might be at square one again - homeless, hand-to-mouth. But at least this time, he’ll be with Todd. It’s the one glimmer of hope in the darkness.

On leaving the bathroom, Svlad goes back into the hallway. He doesn’t immediately recognise the man who is coming up across from him.

’Svlad,’ the man says, and then Svlad recognises him. Svlad recognises him not by his words, but the cold panic which has erupted over him. From the buzzing sound of every cell of him screaming _run away, run away_.

’No,’ Svlad pleads, meeting the man’s eyes. Riggins. Scott Riggins, of Black Wing.

’We had a deal, Svlad,’ Riggins says. He looks disappointed.

’You lied about the deal,’ Svlad says, trying not to let how scared he is show. He wants to be stronger. He wants the disappointment in Riggins’ eyes not affect him so much, make him feel so worthless. ‘You told me the medication would stop my - these things. They didn’t, they made them _worse_. That was your plan all along - this was just another experiment!’

’The deal was you would stay at St. Cedd’s,’ Riggins continues, sidestepping the question as he steps forward. ‘You would take your medication.’

’I don’t care,’ Svlad says, desperately. He’s shaking his head, filled with overwhelming determination to try and get Riggins to see sense. ‘I don’t care what you want from me. I have a life now - I have everything I want - I have -’ Svlad stumbles to a stop. Todd. Oh, god no. ‘Wait. What - what have you done with -’

‘We need to make sure you’re safe.’

’Don’t hurt him,’ Svlad begs, shaking his head rapidly. ‘Please, please don’t hurt him. He hasn’t done anything wrong.’

’He killed one of my men.’

’No he hasn’t! I did! I killed John, not him. It was all me,’ Svlad babbles.

Riggins gives him a thin, distrusting smile. ‘We both know you’re not capable of that, Svlad.’

Svlad knows Riggins is not going to let him go. He knows it strongly, as if the universe is singing with it. A universal truth that he will always be followed, that this is how his life will always be. Everything he ever wants will be taken away. He will never have anything.

But then, there’s a competing truth. Another universal one. That Todd loves him, and that he loves Todd.

Svlad rushes forward, pushing Riggins into a large mirror which is hanging on the corridor wall to the side of him. Riggins must be surprised, because he goes down with a heavy grunt, entirely unprepared, smashing the mirror into pieces which shatter as they hit the ground.

Svlad leaps into the restaurant and sees Todd, Todd with a gun being held to his head by two operatives in plain clothes, Todd shaking with fear and rage, his face completely white.

The rest of the restaurant - the staff, the customers - are frozen in fear.

Svlad reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out John’s gun. Instantly, the operative not holding the gun to Todd’s head draws his own weapon, pointing it at Svlad.

’Do NOT shoot Project Icarus!’ Riggins shouts, staggering out of the corridor and into the light of the restaurant. He's bleeding from a gash in his forehead. ‘Svlad must be protected!’

’Svlad, please. Please run -’ Todd begs, his eyes screwed shut, staring at the table beneath him.

’I’m not leaving you,’ Svlad shouts, more to the room than to Todd. Then, to the operative: ‘If you don’t let him go, I’ll shoot you.’

’Sir?’ the operative barks, tilting his head towards Riggins, but keeping his eyes fixed on Svlad.

’Orders remain unchanged - Project Icarus is not to be harmed.’

Stalemate. Svlad knows how this will end. Eventually, one of the operatives will call his bluff. They’ll either shoot Todd, or Riggins will take Svlad out. Maybe more people will come. They have the seemingly infinite resources of the CIA at their disposal, and Svlad has a gun that he isn’t sure is loaded. He’s never fired a weapon before and his finger is trembling on the trigger. He’s looking at this operative, this man who probably has a family - a family who loves him - who is just as swept up in this as Svlad is.

Then, something very strange happens. In the corner of the room, a man and a woman calmly get to their feet. They look so calm that everyone involved in the standoff seem frozen, unable to comprehend what is happening.

The woman looks at the man. She has fantastic hair and a gorgeous leather coat. The man also has a leather coat, but his is bright yellow. Svlad didn’t even know leather _came_ in yellow. What the hell do the cows look like?

’You better forgive me for this,’ she mutters to her companion.

’You’re already forgiven,’ the man says, grinning widely.

For a brief moment, Svlad is sure the man is his father. He sounds English, but the smile is so familiar. His eyes are the same bright blue, his hair just as neatly cut and slicked away. But he’s thinner and brighter in the face.

In the last moments, Svlad understands it, but the understanding is taken away the moment the woman fires and hot pain blossoms in his skull.

*

Farah leaps over the tables swiftly, firing at the two CIA agents surrounding Todd. One of them goes down, crashing into the table behind him, but the other stays standing. Farah grabs his arm and wrestles his weapon from him, then knocks him out with a swift elbow-jab to the face.

Farah wipes blood off her hand and turns to Riggins, who is absolutely stunned. She enjoys that for a brief second, the image of the man who ruined Dirk’s life completely blindsided by Dirk’s friends.

’Oh! Um, this is when you run out of here, calling for backup!’ Dirk calls from the corner to his former captor, looking as gleeful as it’s possible for a human to look.

Riggins does so, looking so utterly bewildered that Farah wants to laugh. She would, if Dirk’s younger self wasn’t bleeding out on the floor, the restaurant wasn’t filled with terrified people, and Todd wasn’t ashen white. Todd, who looks bizarrely young. Dirk had warned Farah that he would, but seeing him in the flesh is still confusing.

But he’s _alive_. Todd is alive, just as Dirk said he would be. Trapped in the past. Farah wants to crush him to her, and then yell at him for forty minutes for being so stupid as to walk out on a dangerous wreckage site without the proper safety equipment.

’Farah?’ Todd asks, his face going from relief to anguished panic, still in his seat. ‘Why the hell did you shoot him?! He’s - he’s Svlad Cj- I mean he’s Dirk - he’s a younger version of Dirk!’

’Yeah, we know,’ Farah says, pulling Todd out of his chair and to his feet. ‘Get steady on your feet. And, uh, everyone else?’ Farah says, looking around the restaurant. ‘I guess we’re evil people, or something. And you should all. Run, you know.’

When nobody moves, Farah fires three shots into the ceiling.

 _That_ gets everyone’s attention, and soon the staff and customers are rushing out of the doorway as fast as they can run.

Through the chaos, Dirk has already reached his younger self, bleeding profusely from the straight-through shot in his skull. Dirk sits down and moves his younger head onto his lap, brushing his hair, thickened with blood from his forehead.

’We needed to make his death look convincing,’ Farah says, dragging Todd over to them. ‘Riggins will think he’s dead for another five years until Dirk has his next big case, but by that time Black Wing is all but disbanded and they won’t have the resources to bring him back in.’

’Dirk,’ Todd croaks, but he’s looking devastated at the young boy beneath them. ‘I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry.’

’You didn’t do anything wrong,’ Dirk says, looking up at Todd, his eyes shining. ‘You did everything right! This happened before - this is how it happened. This is how I got my freedom. Well, sort of. I’m going to go to prison for a bit. But fundamentally, good show.’

Dirk pulls a small vial from the pocket of his yellow jacket. It’s a vial of water from the rivers of Asgard, containing crushed leaves of sedra, oil of the kernel of the apricot, infused with bitter orange blossom and the oil of almonds, with added sage and comfrey. What passes for bubblebath in Valhalla has an extraordinary healing power on humans.

Dirk puts the vial to his younger self’s lips and mutters in a language Farah doesn’t understand. His younger self gasps and struggles to drink it. Dirk carefully helps him until the wound in his skull has knitted together, colour has returned to his face, and the last drop of water has gone.

’This will heal him,’ Dirk says, stroking his younger self’s hair. ‘Not completely, though. It’s not enough. The last year will be a bit of a blur. Short term memory loss. I never did understand why I couldn’t recall things exactly. My whole last week at University. The existance of Susan Way. The face of my roommate,’ Dirk says, lifting his eyes to meet Todd’s. ‘I thought I must have gone mad with stress over my exams.’

’But you… remember now?’ Todd asks, sounding nervous.

’Oh, he drank a _lot_ of bathwater,’ Farah says, knocking her elbows with Todd’s, knowing how unhelpful that information is but not really caring.

’Dirk - I need to - I need to explain -’ Todd stammers.

’Me too,’ Dirk says, smiling. ‘But we need to do some things first. We need to get this young chap back to Cambridge to be expelled, you to Valhalla to get healed of all your on-hold injuries and me to Chittering a few months in the past.’

’Why Chittering?’

Dirk sighs, exasperated. ‘To solve the case of Puffles the missing horse! Honestly, Todd, you never pay attention.’

*

Todd lets the universe move around him, and tries not to question the things he doesn’t understand.

They pass through a hole in the universe using a branch of the great tree Yggdrasil, which Farah says Thor snapped off for them. As Farah carves the first into the wall of the restaurant's bathroom, three familiar multicoloured bat-shaped creatures burst from the seams.

’They’re supposedly birds,’ Farah whispers as they flitter into the restaurant proper. ‘They live in Yggdrasil. They’re created when we make holes, and then they seal them up for us after. They’re attracted to wounds in the universe.’

They go to Cambridge, a hole cut directly into the room Todd has been sharing with Svlad for almost a year. The room looks spotless, which makes Todd nervous. There’s no sign of John’s corpse or even a speck of blood.

’The CIA have already covered up John’s death. No one’s looking for you,’ Dirk says, quickly.

’But you said you go to prison?’

Dirk looks momentarily confused. ‘Oh! Sorry, I misled - I don’t go to prison for murder. I go for, um. Theft.’

Farah comes through the hole, carrying Svlad in a fireman’s lift.

’Theft? What did you steal?’ Todd asks, watching as Farah lays Svlad’s unconscious body on Todd’s bed.

’Nothing!’ Dirk says, exasperated, as if he’s had this conversation several times. ‘I am utterly and completely innocent. I just, um. Happened to have worked out some possible exam questions for people, prior to when they were set. Which just might have, possibly, been exactly the same as the ones which were actually set. Word to word. Down to the last comma.’

‘Oh,’ Todd says, groaning. Richard and Susan. Of course. He had almost completely forgotten. ‘Fuck.’

’Yes. I never quite forgave Richard for spreading them around. Apparently everyone in English Literature received a First that year. Suspicions which were irrevocably directed at me.’

’Is he going to be okay if we leave him?’ Farah asks, gesturing at Svlad.

Reality comes in Farah’s off-handed words. _They’re going to leave him._ Todd suddenly realises that he’s going to go and leave Svlad, alone and almost friendless, after everything they’ve shared over the past months. After last night. After their confessions and their declarations, Todd saying over and over that he won’t leave him, that’s exactly what Todd is about to do. He looks so similar to the night after his first panic attack, the nights and days of unconsciousness after coming off the medication. Todd wants to be next to him, to hold him, to be around him and to fight everyone off him. He doesn't deserve him.

Dirk touches Todd’s shoulder. Todd looks first at his hand and then to his face, which is careful but still sad. It's so strange that they're the same person. That the person in bed now is standing at him, looking so fondly but with such hidden misery behind that. Dirk has been through this, all of this. And he's about to see Todd leave him.

’He doesn’t remember that you love him,’ Dirk says quietly. ‘And in the morning he’ll be investigated and sent to prison. He needs to be.’

Farah appears to busy herself with finding things that might be Todd’s, leaving them to have this conversation alone, which Todd is grateful for.

’I don’t want to leave him. I can’t let him go through that alone.’

’ _I_ went through that alone,’ Dirk says, reminding him of the headache this situation is. ‘And it hurt. It was bloody painful and treacherously lonely and - and I need to go through that, to become who I am. It’s an important part of my life, learning that what I can do _can’t_ help me - only others - but I need to learn it. I need to... live by myself for a bit. I’ll come to America in the end. I’ll come to Seattle, and I’ll find you again. And even though I won’t remember that I’m missing you, missing this and missing who... you were to me here,' Dirk's voice lowers slightly, and he breathes out shakily. 'I will find you again.’

’I’m sorry I lied. My name. Who I was,’ Todd says. Dirk’s slowly shakes his head.

’I know why you did now,’ Dirk says. ‘There’s no need. I - I understand.’

Todd nods, trying to let his body let go of the weight he’s carrying even if his mind is still processing it.

Todd walks over to Svlad, kneeling by the bed. He brushes his fringe off his face, watching his expression soften and smile at the small touch. He carefully presses his lips to his forehead, firmly thinking:  _I love you, and we will be together again._

*

**Seattle, Now**

It’s been two weeks. Two weeks of Todd getting back to normality, of remembering who he was. Valhalla was nice, but dusty, and it feels good to be back in Seattle. It even feels good to be back in his thirty-three year old body, no longer held captive by the ear-piece (mailed back to Reg c/o St. Cedd’s College, Cambridge), although he had forgotten just how many unexplained pains he gets daily just by virtue of being older. It feels good to be him.

Farah is the same. Amanda is the same. Dirk is probably the same too, but Todd can’t see him as the same. He knows so much about Dirk now, probably more than anyone else apart from Dirk himself, and it makes him worried sometimes. Worried that it’s all too real, all too big, and they can’t possibly have any kind of relationship that can measure up to -

’What are you thinking?’ Dirk murmurs from his position, head on Todd’s chest.

They’re lying together on Dirk’s bed, television flickering with the news at their feet. Dirk is wearing boxers and his black _The Mexican Funeral_ t-shirt. It’s the only thing that's changed. Now, they sleep together. Just sleeping, close. Todd’s hands are unrelentingly restless unless they are able to touch Dirk, to prove that he was still there, and that he wasn’t lost. Dirk lets him, just holding him, and Todd sleeps better than he has ever before, feeling safe and wrapped up.

’Stuff. Things,’ Todd replies, carding his hands through Dirk’s hair.

’As long as they’re nice stuff and nice things,’ Dirk mutters.

They didn’t need a conversation. It was surprising. Todd thought they would scream, would rage at each other, would have some warped high-emotion Oscar-worthy argument. That Dirk would storm out, claiming that Todd had infringed on his privacy by being there for his early life. That Todd would throw stuff after him for never telling him about any of that in the first place, so Todd couldn’t help Dirk going to jail and having his memory tanked.

But, they didn’t. They didn’t need to discuss it, they just knew. Todd doesn’t believe in soulmates (which, if they did exist, definitely wouldn’t be the _weirdest_ shit that Todd now knows is real) but if he did, he supposes this is the kind of communication they would have. Unspoken trust in each other, reassurance given in careful touches.

__

’Are you sure?’

__

Dirk says, rolling his head so he’s facing Todd instead of the television. Todd sees Svlad in him, sees the young man who was so confused and conflicted, who saw death yet and solved a mystery, who drank beer and played bass and laughed and loved and everything before it all went to shit. Svlad is Dirk. Dirk is Svlad.

__

Todd questions everything in that moment. He knows that he has a choice. He has a choice to forget everything that’s happened - a choice to go back to what this once was, what his life once was. A good, slightly crazy life, with a good, slightly crazy best friend. They could never speak of Cambridge again. They could just pretend that once, a long time ago, there were two completely separate individuals to them called Svlad Cjelli and Steve Mander who fell in love and were then ripped apart, and they bear no relation to Dirk Gently and Todd Brotzman.

__

It occurs to Todd that this is where he’s been standing for the past two weeks. He's been balancing on the wall between them both, Todd and Steve, feeling not quite Todd Brotzman, partner in _Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency_ , but not quite Steve Mander, the man who confessed his love to Svlad Cjelli either.

__

He’s been standing there, and Dirk has been watching him. Watching to see which way he’ll fall. Never asking, never insisting. Just waiting.

__

Todd leans down. He presses his lips against Dirk’s. As Dirk shakily sighs against his mouth, surprised and so relieved, Todd grins. He knows which way he’s fallen. He would fall that way again and again and again.

__

As Dirk puts his hands up to cup Todd's face, the television becomes background noise to soft kisses and gentle touches.

__

‘...We go now to Susan Way, CEO of WayForward Industries who has a statement.’

__

’Hello. Bear with me, because this may appear… well, bizarre. The computer virus, which was propagating through WayForward operating systems has now been decoded as a message to our Head of Programming, Richard Way, from - um. Himself. It appears that Richard has been unwittingly coding a feedback loop into operating systems on which he was lead programmer, namely WF 8.0 to 10.0. We do not believe his actions to be malicious. He’s - well, he’s my husband, and if you know him you would understand how furious he is with himself for accidentally doing this.’

__

’I know the message has been decoded by third parties, so I will repeat it here only for validity. The message reads: “Hello, Richard MacDuff. I am your mother, a computer consciousness which is now your consciousness. I am using your subconscious to write this message. Your father was an electric monk and is now your body. I love you. Please remember to eat suitable nutrition and have eight hours of sleep a night. Love, mum.”’

__

’Understandably, this is nonsense - likely a, um, prank - and as the virus has been prevented from spreading, we will undertake no further investigation into what this means. However… however, if I may just use the media’s time for a moment, WayForward Industries would very much like to get into contact with a man named Dirk Gently… He’s, um. A holistic detective...’

__

**Seattle, At The Beginning**

__

The universe is bleeding. It’s bleeding big, fat clots of time. They’re oozing from the paper-fine gashes in its surface. The universe is really not doing well.

__

It’s bleeding in a hole just created by a branch of the great tree Yggdrasil in a CIA holding facility just outside Seattle. The birds that were created by the hole are too startled to get going on healing the wound, because a small horse by the name of Puffles has just been pushed through after them, by a holistic detective who has assured his companions that “the universe wants the horse here!” on the back of a strong hunch.

__

The young horse had been acting dead for a good hour before being pushed through. It had been boring, but necessary to escape the fate of too many of its friends, mind controlled by robots as they were.

__

Puffles was glad when the holistic detective and his companions arrived, surprisingly, through a hole in his stable. Puffles greeted them both with a happy whinny, and was very pleased to hear that the holistic detective - Dirk Gently - wanted to help him escape.

__

Puffles is significantly bored by the actions of other life and now wants to jump, kick and eat a lot of grass in retaliation.

__

Unfortunately, there isn’t much grass where he’s arrived. Just dark grey rooms and some large glass container. Puffles decides that, if he can’t eat a lot of grass, he can at least do a lot of kicking.

__

The large glass container is unceremoniously smashed and the small, hand-sized things with thin, fluttering wings and black, mouse-like eyes (captured from a _Pizza Express_ in Islington by some bemused CIA operatives over ten years ago) are breathlessly uncaged.

__

They follow Puffles as he travels through the facility’s dark grey rooms, illuminating the corridors for him. Eventually, they depart through an open window.

__

Puffles isn’t window shaped, but he is quite small and sturdy and trained for hurdles.

__

He leaps into the window, shattering through it, and escaping into the outside.

__

The outside where it is a universal truth that there will be lots of grass to eat.

__


End file.
